


Hold This Threadbare Heart at Needlepoint

by nire



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms
Genre: Common Folk OCs, Domestic Bliss, Dyslexic Jaime Lannister, Embroidery, Established Relationship, Everything and Everyone is Soft, Everything is Beautiful and Nothing Hurts, F/M, Fluff, Married Life, Medieval Solutions to Medieval Problems, Other GoT/ASoIAF Characters Mentioned But Not Tagged Because They Have Little To No Lines, Post-Canon, Post-War, Soft Brienne, That One Is Just A Fluff-Fest, The Author Has Never Written A Sex Scene Before, The Author Is A Clown, The Author Regrets Nothing, They're happy in Tarth, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, but she tries, especially the last chapter, soft jaime
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-03
Updated: 2019-06-30
Packaged: 2020-04-07 09:27:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 25,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19082218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nire/pseuds/nire
Summary: Jaime wielded a sword well enough with his left hand, but a quill was a different beast altogether. Brienne found an ingenious solution, proposed in the form of a wager.Or,Jaime learned how to embroider to train the fine motor skills of his left hand.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hardlyfatal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hardlyfatal/gifts), [Katia Irzyk](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Katia+Irzyk).



> Dedicated to hardlyfatal, whose modern AUs got me writing (your sex scene writing tips were super helpful). I blame you for everything. Also to Katia, my real life friend who made me sleep enough in the middle of a hypomanic episode. I love you.
> 
> This started as a delirious tweet, but I guess here we are now. This story has been 80% written (as of now, there are approximately 14 thousand words in the draft). I just need to finish chapter five and edit/fine-tune things as we go, so worry not. I will not abandon this fic.
> 
> Mostly show canon except we're ignoring most Bad Things in season 8, with a few elements of book canon peppered in. This fic isn't plot-heavy, so all you need to know is Daenerys is queen, she was Azor Ahai and Jon was Nissa Nissa. King's Landing was toast because of Cersei's wildfire so the throne is now in Dragonstone. Tyrion is Hand. The north is independent again, with Sansa as Queen in the North. And of course, Jaime married Brienne and took the Tarth name as soon as the war ended.
> 
> Enjoy!

A moon into their marriage, Brienne knocked on the door of Jaime’s study before slipping in without waiting for his answer. At this hour, she should with their steward, making the rounds to the stables, kennels, armoury, kitchens, and everywhere else, ensuring things were in order as they should. It had not been long since Queen Daenerys liberated Tarth from pirates and returned it to Brienne, and the new steward of Evenfall Hall was young, perhaps scarce older than Brienne, and not fully trained to manage the keep. And indeed, she had been doing those duties before encountering the runner Jaime had sent to fetch the maester.

Jaime looked up from the parchment he had been labouring over. “My lady wife,” he greeted her with a grin. He had taken to call her many forms of ‘wife’, ‘my lady’, and ‘my love’, all to make her blush. She had no inkling why he found the sight to his liking. Many had called the blush blotchy and unseemly on her scarred, freckled face, but it seemed his life’s work to discompose her. “To what do I owe the pleasure, my love? Have you perhaps missed my company so? We barely parted an hour ago after breaking fast.”

“Maester Armen is looking after Lilley—the cook,” she added, for Jaime’s benefit, as he had not known the names of all her staff yet, “in her birthing bed.”

Jaime showed no disappointment. With a shrug, he said, “Well then, this could wait. Bolt the door and come here.” He put his quill back in the inkwell and shoved piles of parchments aside and tapped his ink-stained fingers on the vacated space, eyebrow raised.

Brienne flushed deeper when she realized his intentions, muttering, “Gods preserve me,” though she did as he bid all the same.

He sat her on the desk, his flesh hand on one thigh and his gold hand on her cheek. He kissed her then, and she hummed into his mouth. His fingertips wandered up her breeches, closer to the juncture of her legs. She dropped one hand to brace herself against the table—

—knocking down the inkwell, the spill blackening her fingers and creeping on the edges of the parchments.

Romantic pursuits promptly forgotten, Brienne leapt off the desk and set herself on the task of straightening the inkwell. Jaime handed her a kerchief, far too finely woven to be made in Tarth, and when her own hand faltered at the golden lion embroidery, he went ahead and mopped the ink himself. Her eye caught the topmost parchment on the pile, a missive to the harbourmaster about preparations for the incoming trade ships from Essos, and a longer letter addressed to Tyrion, his scribbles smudged and barely legible even to her eyes. It was then that she remembered why she had come personally to inform him of the maester’s unavailability.

He must have seen her face change because he averted his gaze and waited, as though waiting for a slap. She chewed on her lip, turning over words in her mind. The subject of his penmanship was, and had been for a while now, an issue, for he had to learn to write with his left hand, and he had never been much for the written word. The stupidest Lannister, Cersei had called him, all because the letters leapt and jumbled when he tried to read, though a conversation with him was all it took to know that he was no dullard. There had been many reasons he had thrown his inheritance in exchange of the white cloak, chief of them his sister and promises of glory and honour, but it had never been a great sacrifice for him.

In the end, though, Brienne chose to be straightforward. Anything less and Jaime would have bristled, accusing her of pity. “Jaime, you cannot ask the maester to write for you _all_ the time. I understand if you require his aid for longer, more official letters, but in time, as Lord of Evenfall Hall, you have to be able to write your own missives.”

He looked like she had slapped him after all. Doubtless that these few sennights had been hard for him, adjusting as well as he could to this foreign island, and more than that, the role of a lord in times of peace. He took to managing the tradesmen and common folk well enough, especially when it pertained to coin, but the more scholarly aspects eluded him. “My left hand is useless,” he said.

She took his left hand, tracing the calluses left by swordplay, then the scars on his knuckles. He would never be as good a fighter as he once was, and yet he was still better than most. “Your left hand fought against the dead and saved countless lives.”

“That is less about the hand and more about the arm and the footwork, really,” he deflected, though he sounded tired, as if he had this argument before. Perhaps he had, with Maester Armen. Neither had mentioned any such argument to her if it had indeed happened.

The young maester, however, was no fighter. It might be that he saw no difference between swordplay and writing. A hand was a hand, and Lord Jaime’s left hand worked well enough with a sword, so why couldn’t he write his own missives? He was a Lannister before he took the Tarth name, and raised with a highborn’s education.

Brienne, on the other hand, saw the truth in Jaime’s excuse. Swordplay _was_ about footwork and arm. The wrist did some, but the hand barely had to do much than grip, and nothing so fine as a pen stroke. She remembered the many times Septa Roelle had hit her wrist with a reed for writing crookedly, remembered the red mark it left on her skin and the sting that lasted for hours after. “I had a terrible hand, too,” she admitted. “But with enough practice—”

He wrenched his hand from her grasp. “It’s not only about the letters, wife. I can scarcely button my own tunic or lace my own breeches. You dress me every morning. Everyone watches me when we dine because my food keeps spilling from my spoon. This hand is good for killing, yes,” and he looked at it with so much loathing, and Brienne knew he was thinking of the time he strangled her sister to death, “but not much else. Death is what it delivers, and only death.”

She grasped the hand again, half-afraid that he might get that one cut, too, and brought it to her lips, kissing the calluses, the scars, the veins, all the while keeping her eyes on his. “Not only death,” she whispered, mortified but certain that she needed to remind him of the many other virtues of his hand, including the _husbandly_ ones.

He was stunned, silent, but soon he caught her meaning well enough, a rakish smirk on his face. He turned the hand to cup her face, thumb tracing her swollen lips. Her breath stuttered, her eyes glazed over, but she kept her gaze locked with his. Then, out of nowhere, he said, “There is a Myrish expression—I can’t quite pronounce it—that in the common tongue translates to ‘the little death’. Have you heard of it?”

She frowned a little. She had had a Myrish tutor, once, who had tried teaching her dances and music for a fortnight before declaring her hopeless. The tutor, however, had spoken to her in the common tongue, and the only Myrish words Brienne had learned in that fortnight were curses. “What does it mean?”

“It means—” and he leaned in to whisper in her ear.

A startled laugh escaped her, blood flushing to the tips of her ears, and she thumped none too gently at his chest. His shoulders shook in laughter, enjoying her reactions despite having shared her bed for many nights. There were crinkles at the edges of his eyes, eyes people described as emeralds. She thought they matched the verdant hills of Tarth, lush and warm, better than the cold glint of gemstones. Her mouth dry, she cleared her throat and asked, “Is that a promise, my Lord, or a threat?”

By way of an answer, he surged to kiss her again, marking the end of the argument—this time, at least. Her hands carded through his hair, now a longer mane of gold streaked with white that nearly fell to his shoulders. He crowded her, one leg between her firmly planted feet, pinning her to the desk. The warmth of his body suffused hers, a campfire in the night.

She broke free of the kiss, gasping, “You’ll knock over the ink again,” but he then licked and sucked her neck, just under her ear, and she found her willpower crumbling away, her protests stuck in her throat.

His lips went lower, to her throat, and when encountering the obstacle of her collar, he began tugging away at the buttons holding her tunic closed. For all his griping over the inability to dress himself, he was quite good at divesting her of her clothing, though he was all impatience, ripping apart the seam on one shoulder as he tried to peel off her sleeves. She made a half-hearted sound of dismay, and his laughter rumbled through the air caught in her throat, the vibration traveling into the hollow of her ribcage.

With the tunic out of the way, he pulled her sleeveless shift over her head before diving in again, his gold hand pressed to the side of her waist and his flesh hand cupped around a breast as he traced the raised scars on her collarbone with his lips. His touch was heated, but the chilly spring wind blew in through the open window behind him, causing gooseflesh to bloom on her skin. She could see, over his shoulders and out the window, the sapphire waters surrounding her island. She could almost taste the sea spray, even at this height.

It still shook her sometimes that fate allowed her to be back home, wedded to the man she loved, being both knight and lady, when she had once thought she would die chasing an oath to a dead woman.

By the time his lips reached the waistband of her breeches—he had paused, on the way, to dip his tongue teasingly into her navel and elicit a squeak from her—her breathing had become laboured, legs wrapped around his broad torso. He glared at her waist. “Laces,” he said vehemently, fingers tugging, tangling at the strings holding the front opening of the breeches, “ _fucking_ laces.”

Brienne felt a little guilty for tying the laces with a double knot. She reached down to help him.

He batted her hands away, grumbling, “No, I want to show your bloody laces I can fight my own fights.”

“It’s not a knight in a tourney, Jaime,” Brienne said, but she smiled nonetheless at his stubbornness. She preferred this infinitely to his self-pity.

It took almost an age, and Jaime’s teeth had, at one point, been involved in the untying of said laces, but he succeeded at last. With a triumphant “Hah!” he pulled her breeches off, smallclothes and all. His eyes greedily followed the exposure of every inch of pale muscled legs. She stepped out of her boots and at last, she was bare to him, entirely. He stepped back and admired her.

Under his gaze, she could almost feel like a beauty.

The wind blew again, harder this time, and Brienne shivered. It did nothing to dampen the lust—if anything, she felt wetness slowly dripping down her cunt. She took half a step back and raised herself to rest her buttocks on the edge of the desk, her legs open. An invitation.

Jaime knelt, ignoring his own burgeoning hardness. He kissed the skin just above her right knee, barely a whisper of a touch, slowly making his way up, taking his time. Brienne tried to urge him, tried to pull him by his hair, but it only made him more determined to take his time. He was finally at the inside of her thigh, beard brushing by the small expanse of skin between her leg and her nether lips, so, so close, when Brienne simply could take no more and moaned, “Your mouth, Jaime, _now._ ”

“As my lady wife commands,” was his reply before he put his mouth on her.

She bit back a moan, but Jaime pulled back, growling, “Let the whole island hear you if you must. You’re their lady,” before bringing his mouth back to her cunt.

So she did, panting and moaning his name, his mouth on her, three of his fingers inside her, pumping and stroking. She threw her right leg over his shoulder while her other leg tried to hold her weight by its tiptoes. The desk creaked under her, a rhythm almost like a song. Her voice rose with every stroke of his fingers, with every lick over her nub, and it was not long before she heard herself scream. He eased her through it, slowing his ministrations but not stopping entirely, until it was over, and she pushed him away.

She was weightless, but her limbs felt leaden.

He stood, wiping her fluids off his chin with a sleeve. Before he could kiss her, she took his hand, the one that was just between her legs, and she put one finger after another in her mouth, tasting her own salt. He had said, once, that she smelled like the ocean, and she supposed she could now tell why. She held his gaze as she sucked his fingers, and from the look of his face as he released the last finger with a pop, she knew there would be little chance of her leaving the study anytime soon.

He took her twice, after: bent over the table, rough as he pleased, then in the chair with her riding him until he came undone.

“The Myrish might have the right of it,” he admitted, later. “I should be lucky if you haven’t milked me dry before the next winter.”

She shot him a dirty look, as though it was _her_ fault that he had to take her so many times a day. His age streaked his hair and lined his face, but he still reminded her of the terrible stories Septa Roelle had told her about the appetite of young men. Except, perhaps, that it was not so terrible as the Septa had said. Her womanhood was sore, her legs were weak, but nothing felt as good as thorough fucking by Jaime.

He languished on the chair, comfortable in his nudity, while she wiped her legs clean of his seed with the inked kerchief. She pulled on her smallclothes and breeches, next, unharmed but for the teeth marks on a part of the laces, then frowned at her torn tunic. “You must stop ruining every item of my clothing.”

“Oh, don’t be so cross. It’s not _ruined_ ,” he said, rolling his eyes.

“Jaime, the sleeve is nearly completely detached from the rest of it.” Brienne was glad that since he had started taking her outside their chambers without care, she had hidden small caches of needle and thread in various cupboards, cabinets, shelves, and even behind a loose brick in a hallway. This, of course, did nothing to dissuade Jaime from damaging her clothing—if anything, he was encouraged by her preparedness. She had one such cache in this study, too, in the drawer of the desk on which he had taken her.

“It’s an improvement,” he said in that tone of his. “You really should show more skin, you know. It’s spring, the weather is getting warm, Dornish fashion is all the rage.”

“More scars for them to see,” she said, threading the needle. “More for them to laugh and point at.”

He sighed. “That isn’t what I meant.”

She, too, sighed, resignation clear in the lines of her face. “I know, Jaime.”

When she began stitching, he finally relented and said, “Oh, very well, I’ll mend your shirt,” snatching the needle and thread from her. “Come hold these together. I only have one hand.”

She held the edges of the fabric together and he stitched them closed with his left hand. It was slow, clumsy, and crooked, but not much worse than her own needlework. “That is—rather good,” she begrudgingly said. “Thank you.”

He shrugged. “Anyone been to a battle knows how to mend a tear. It’s not fancy, but we were all not hopeless without our wives.”

Brienne knew this, of course, but she had known him first as a belligerent, spoiled, foul-mouthed Lannister scion and so, somehow, she could not align her perception of him exactly with common soldiers.

This, too, must have been writ on her face, or maybe he was just well-versed in her expressions, as he exclaimed with mock offense, “You doubt me.”

“I do not,” she said, though she did.

He scoffed. “My lady, I stitched half as much better than most common men, and with my left hand, too. I should think I deserve some praise.”

“Maybe when your stitches stop being so crooked,” she shot back, though her mind was stuck on his statement. It was true that he had used his left hand to stitch, and though she had had to help him hold the fabrics together, he had done quite well. And needlework—it was delicate, wasn’t it? It was no swinging sword, no footwork or power. Merely diligence and caution.

_Not,_ it dawned on her, _unlike penmanship._

Eyes narrowing, Jaime said, “Is that a wager, wife?”

She wondered if Jaime knew her thoughts. He often did. Mind set on a course, she raised her chin and said, “If it were, my lord, would you take it?”

“A wager must have a prize, something more than a measly praise.”

“Sew straight and I promise you a prize, husband,” she said, straightening her back so her breasts were displayed to him as she slowly buttoned up her tunic, “unless you doubt my honour.” She did the last button, just under her throat, though her nipples were still hard against the fabric. For once, she was not shy. She meant to tempt him.

His eyes glinted as he flashed a smile at her, a lion baring his fangs. “Doubt your honour, Ser? Never.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hopefully you like what you see so far! Do leave a comment to tell me how you like it. Specifically, please tell me what you think of the sex scene, and please be kind because I have never successfully written a sex scene before this. Please look forward to the rest of the story, which I will upload in the coming week!


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime begins his tutelage under the very skilled scullery maids of Evenfall Hall.

The next morning, Jaime gathered the sheets of their bed himself, and when one of the servants came to put on new sheets, he watched her do so with rapt attention, at the way she expertly pulled and tightened the fabric over the mattress. He then refused to give the old sheets to her, flashing her a charming smile and saying, “You must be tired, having to go to and fro. Let me help carry your basket to the washers.”

The woman looked at him with incredulity. “Milord, it’s still morning. I’m not tired.”

She was right, of course, but he was used to worse ripostes from Brienne. “Of course, of course. I didn’t mean to imply you couldn’t do your job. Regardless, I am the lord, now, and it should be time I know the staff of the castle better.”

Her eyes narrowed. “I don’t think Lady Brienne would appreciate her husband being in my skirts. And I have no intention to betray her ladyship.”

“I don’t mean _that_ ,” he said, and his insides recoiled at the mere suggestion. A suggestion _he_ had somehow impressed in the woman. “I was merely saying, I met with the smith, the master-at-arms, and the kennelmaster, even the cook—Lilley, is it?” He only remembered the name because Brienne had mentioned her yesterday. “How’s the babe?”

“He’s well, milord. Good that the maester was there to care for her.”

Jaime’s blood ran cold. “Difficult birth?”

“Yes, milord.”

Seven hells. Had Brienne not intercepted the runner, Jaime would have doomed the woman and her babe. Betimes he forgot what an important role a maester played in a castle. They tended the ravens, healed the ill, counselled the lords and ladies, taught the young. Jaime’s inability to write his own letters could at any time take Maester Armen away from where he was more needed. Brienne, cleverest of wives, ladies, and knights, had seen that. Her bold suggestion of a wager made more sense, now.

The maidservant broke his contemplation. “Milord? May I take the sheets, now?”

“What is your name?”

“Joan.”

Jaime’s insides twisted at that. Joan looked nothing like his mother, stout and dark instead of slender and fair, but the name was similar enough to remind him of his own, who’d died in her birthing bed, despite the best maester Casterly Rock could pay. Once again, he thanked the Gods for bringing the runner into Brienne’s path instead of the maester’s. Unbidden, the words spilled out of his mouth, “My mother’s name was Joanna.”

Joan looked unimpressed. “Right, I’m sure I’m not her. Milord.”

“No, I—I’m sorry.” Seven help him, he was stuttering like a fool. “Perhaps I should start from the start. What if I help you carry the basket while I explain this?”

Joan gestured at the door, as if he was but a lowly servant and she the lady of the castle, and they walked together down the tower to the scullery. He told Joan of the wager he made with Brienne, painting it as a funny jape, but when the woman raised a questioning eyebrow at him, he squirmed and told Joan of his problems with his letters, and his penmanship, and his near-useless hand. Joan listened and said nothing.

There was something about Tarth, he decided, that made it impossible for him to not bare his heart. They were most of them simple folk, lacking in humour but rich in honour and kindness. It was terrifying that his jokes had little effect here, and yet comforting that they could see him as he was. Removed from the rest of Westeros and its politics, they knew of his ill-repute but didn’t hold them against him. They didn’t trust him, not yet, but they trusted Brienne. That was good enough.

At last, they reached the scullery, a foyer filled with a half dozen or so women labouring over big wooden basins and bundles of fabric, the open wall leading to a field with rows poles, clotheslines strung between them. Joan pointed at a corner where Jaime could put the basket, and she swiftly sorted its contents—bedding to one pile, smallclothes to another, dark-coloured clothes to a third. She wrinkled her nose at Brienne’s tunic, the stitches holding a sleeve to the shoulder crooked.

“I did that one,” Jaime supplied.

“I see that. Her ladyship isn’t a dressmaker, but even she knew how to sew straight. How did you manage, with one hand?”

“She held the fabrics together for me,” he admitted.

Joan sniffed. “Well, we have work to do.” She instructed the washerwomen to take the laundry, then led Jaime to a corner with a pile of unwashed fabric. “These are the torn ones. We mend first, then wash. That way they don’t get torn more when we wring them dry. Ara, Merry, this here’s Lord Jaime. He wants to learn how to sew. Teach him how to use pins and the like, and if he did poorly, make him redo it.”

Ara and Merry were perhaps of Tommen and Myrcella’s age, had they lived. They had similar colourings, brown hair and brown eyes, though Ara was taller, and Merry had freckles peppering her skin. The two girls stood and did a crude curtsey, and he bowed to them in return.

Ara, wide-eyed at his bow, said in alarm, “Milord—”

“Mistress Ara, Mistress Merry. I hope it isn’t too much burden to teach an old man such as me,” he said, piling on the courtly charms he’d employed many times at court years ago. Somehow, this time it felt less empty, even though directed to lowborn women instead of highborn. Or perhaps it was because he directed it to lowborn women.

Ara looked like she was about to faint. “Of course not, milord.”

Merry looked—well, she looked like little Arya Stark, like she was smarter than everyone else and bored by everything. His speech made no effect on her, as she simply sat back on her bench and continued mending a pair of breeches.

“Excellent. I suppose we should just get right to it, then? Jaime plopped down on an empty stool next to Merry. He lifted a tunic with a loose button, then a threaded needle.

“Not that one,” Merry said, her voice firm despite her smaller build. “That’s thread we use for breeches, vests. Thicker material. For buttons, you use this one.” She gave him a smaller needle and a thinner thread.

He took the needle and the thread and realized that he couldn’t put the thread in by himself. Not with one hand. It would also be absurdly humiliating to even involve his mouth in this. He might even prick his eye out if he tried. He turned to Ara. “Could you thread this needle for me?” he pleaded, and he made his face as pitiful as possible.

Merry glared at Ara, who shrunk and shook her head. Jaime could not believe these Tarth women. He was their lord, and they treated him like he had been just another scullery maid. His dismay must have been evident because Merry grabbed his golden hand and shoved a pincushion between the thumb and forefinger. She stuck the needle there, keeping it in place, then wordlessly gestured to Jaime to thread the needle himself.

“Has anyone ever told you, Merry, that your name suits you ill?” Jaime said to Merry.

Merry pursed her lips. “Milord, you want to sew—and if the lady is a knight then the lord ought to be allowed to sew too, I suppose—and to sew you have to be able to thread your own needle. We’re not here to do the work for you. We have our own work,” Merry said, gesturing to the ever-growing pile. “Beg your pardon if we’re not the teachers you wanted.”

With that, Merry went and returned to her own sewing. She interjected often, to tell Jaime to redo a stitch or point him to the right thread. She refused to let him even touch the worse tears, only letting him do buttons or undone seams. Ara was kinder, though mousy and timid—after the first button he fixed, she gave him a spare cushion which she had sewn to a piece of scrap ribbon, so it could be fastened around his right wrist. Even then, and even with pins helping him, it was slow work, often clumsy, fabric slipping from his golden fingers and stitches so bad even sweet Ara made him undo. The pile of torn or damaged clothing seemed to never end. In a simple island such as this, it was easier and cheaper to mend and patch than to make new jerkins and breeches.

Jaime’s back soon ached from sitting hunched for too long, but he didn’t protest. The women did this all day, every day, and if they didn’t complain, then he wouldn’t, either. Besides, it was better work than letters. The stitches didn’t jump around and mock him like words did. If he did wrong, he could simply pull the thread and redo it, the sturdy fabrics forgiving enough to give him a second, third, fourth chance. Nothing was wasted, unlike the countless wells of ink he spilled or parchments he scrapped.

Noon arrived sooner than Jaime thought it would. The washerwomen worked in a flurry, wringing fabric then hanging them on lines of rope outside the castle. Merry and Ara finished mending all that needed mending. Jaime managed a grand number of two loose buttons and one undone seam, each receiving a curt nod from Merry before they were washed.

He was standing up, stretching his aching muscles, when Brienne walked in and looked at him with a puzzled frown. “There you are. I have been looking for you everywhere, then Joan told me you have been here all day.”

“Wife!” he exclaimed, embracing her and planting a firm kiss on her lips. “I hope you prepared a good prize, because I’m winning.”

Fighting a losing battle against the blood rising to her face from the open display, Brienne kept her expression flat, but there was a twinkle in her lovely sapphire eyes as she asked, “Are you, now?” She turned to his two new instructors. “Lord Jaime made a wager with me that he could sew a straight seam without a crooked stitch. Did he?”

Ara stifled a giggle. “It took him the better part of an hour to thread a needle, milady. I’d say you have a while still to get the prize ready.” The girl had lost her nervousness when Jaime had proven that he would not yell at them for telling him to undo his bad stitches so many times.

Merry rolled her eyes, clearly having little patience for the lord’s and lady’s games. “That is if he shows up tomorrow, and every day after that, and not give up out of boredom.”

Jaime held no grudge over Merry’s statement. It was common for the nobility to take interest in the work of the common folk, only to abandon it after a day and consider it beneath them. His father certainly would’ve forbidden him from spending his time with the scullery maids altogether. He would’ve forbidden Cersei, too, although Cersei had had her own needlework tutor, a Lysene seamstress teaching her how to work with glittering beads and silk so thin only the Dornish dared wear them. Cersei had resented it, instead coveting Jaime’s training with the master-at-arms.

While Jaime had thrived as a soldier, earning his knighthood at fifteen, he’d always been a little curious of the arts that Cersei had scorned so. Now, free of the confines of his station, he felt free. He’d thoroughly enjoyed this morning, though he’d made slow progress. When he expressed this, reassuring Merry and Ara that he would return on the morrow, the two girls looked disbelieving, but they dared not contradict him.

As they walked to the dining hall, Brienne shot him a curious look. “You meant it, didn’t you?”

“That I’d return tomorrow to sew with them again? Of course.”

“And you enjoyed it?”

“Does that come as a surprise?”

Brienne was quiet, for a while. “Yes. I never had the patience for it. Mending was a necessity, not a pleasure, and anything more was of little interest to me.”

Jaime frowned. There was something else, he sensed, that she wasn’t saying. Something tender that she held close to her heart, something to do with her upbringing. “I would hazard a guess it’s what your cunt of a Septa said, isn’t it?”

Brienne sighed. “She said it mattered little how beautiful my dress was. In truth, the more beautiful the dress, the less it suited me.”

Anger surged within Jaime, and he pulled his wife roughly into an alcove to kiss her senselessly, as though his lips could’ve erased the damage done to her before she’d met him. When they pulled apart, gasping for air, he said to her, “I’m sorry your Septa is dead. I would dearly love to meet her and show her how unbearably wrong she was about you.”

“Jaime,” Brienne chided, though she was smiling. “You cannot punch a Septa like you punched Red Ronnet.”

“There’s other ways to show her,” he said, bringing her hand to his arousal, letting her hand cup him through his breeches. “What was it she said? That you should just grin and bear the bedding?” He let go of her hand, tracing his fingertips up her sleeve, to her shoulder, then down to the hard nipples pressing through the fabric of her tunic. “I remember our first time in the north. You were so scared, then. It was a wonder at all you let me in your room.”

“I wanted you,” she whispered, her head lolling to rest on his shoulder, her breath warm over his ear.

“Wanted?” he asked, idly, as though he was not himself on fire.

“Want. I want you. I still do. I always do. I cannot remember a time when I didn’t.” He felt her hand tugging at the laces of his breeches, while her other was clutching his shoulder so hard, he could feel the bruises forming. Brienne was such a curious woman, he thought. She was shy, but when lust overtook her, she’d lose her grip on her words and actions. She rarely drank, but not even the strongest wine could induce this effect in her.

“You keep this up, _wench_ ,” he said, pinching a nipple. Her back arched, thrusting her small breasts towards his touch. He wasn’t sure if it was his touch or his words that caused it. “You keep this up and I will take you here, and no one can stop us until I am done with you.”

Brienne whimpered, but after a few seconds, she gathered herself enough to pant out, “The bathhouse. It’s the closest. We can bolt the door—no one uses it at this hour.”

He marvelled at the flushed smile she aimed at him, knowing full well that she was recalling the first time they saw each other bare, the first time he told anyone about the Mad King. The first time he wanted her.

They ran to the bathhouse, hand-in-hand and laughing all the way, uncaring of the stares they attracted. She reached the bathhouse first. When he finished bolting the door, she had unlaced her breeches, pulling them off with little care. She lay on her back, legs open. He leaned down to please her with his mouth, but she whined in protest. “No,” she said, “not now. I want you inside me. Now.”

In his haste, he snapped the laces of his own breeches as he pulled them off her hips. He didn’t bother taking them off entirely, only to his knees, before getting on top of her and pushing inside.

She was wet and ready, and though he’d planned on easing himself into her, she had other plans, arching her own hips up to meet him, taking him in one rough stroke.

It was still too fast, hurting her—she grunted in pain, like when an enemy landed a hit on her—but she closed her eyes in a way no enemy had made her do. The scant light coming in from the high bathhouse window fell on her face. For a moment, her eyelashes looked like they were made of sunbeams.

He must’ve paused because her eyes flew open and she wrapped her legs around his waist to pull him in deeper. They were long and pure muscle, the legs of a rider and warrior, and her grip was so tight he could scarcely pull his hips backwards. His thrusts were shallow and hurried, and this seemed to please her, from the sounds she was making. Leaning in, he kissed her, tasted the sweetness of her mouth, smelled the sea air in her hair. Her tongue was clumsy against his, and at one point his teeth bit his lower lip and he felt himself buck into her even deeper. Her arms were around his shoulders, strong, a grapple that doubtless could immobilize any enemy. Her strength aroused him, more than Cersei’s beauty had had when he was young.

This was Brienne, _his_ Brienne, and no other woman was like her. Only her.

He felt his completion approaching, felt his own hips move in a more frenetic pace. Brienne pulled his head back, locked her sapphire eyes with his, and gasping with each thrust, “Yes, just like that, come, Jaime, come for me,” and he was undone, a low roar escaping him. His seed filled her, spilled between her legs, and his cock grew soft in her.

He fell atop her, and she stroked his hair, ever so gentle. It was then that he remembered to ask, “Did you…?”

She smiled, shaking her head. “No, but it’s alright. It was enough.”

“Oh, is that so?” he asked, his hand going down her side, squeezing her hip, brushing the coarse hair between her legs. “So, I suppose I shouldn’t touch you here, like this?” He dipped a finger in her wetness, grinning as her hips leapt up at the touch.

She whined. His wife, a knight of the Seven Kingdoms, Lady of Evenfall Hall, whimpered in protest, and the sound was a wonderful thing. She was strong, stronger than he, and here she was pliant under his ministrations. He kept his touches light, barely a whisper over her swollen nub, dipping a finger up to the first joint before withdrawing. She glared at him, though her frown was ruined by the redness of her face and the mewling that escaped her lips.

He chuckled, teasing her further, but not enough for her. “Come, wife, tell me what you want of me,” he said, “unless you want this to go on for hours?”

Gripping his shoulders with both hands, she growled and flipped him over to his back, straddling him. He grunted as his body made impact with the marble floor.

“Stop teasing,” she said, positioning herself so her legs straddled his head. “You know what I want.”

“I truly, truly don’t,” he said, though he did. Her wetness and his seed mixed, and a drop fell on his cheek. He could smell himself on her, in her, and though it was mere moments ago that he’d finished in her, he felt his cock respond. “You should talk to me. You know, I think the Septon who married us said something about that. The discourse between man and wife—”

“Oh, shut up,” she said, finally fed up, lowering her cunt to his mouth so he could lick her clean. He happily complied. He had, after all, said that he would be happy to serve under her, and he meant that in all senses of the word.

He brought her to completion not once, but twice, the second time with his hand around his own cock, his own peak coming right after hers.

They stripped the rest of their clothes and he discarded his golden hand, after, and descended to the bath, taking turns scrubbing each other’s back. He oiled her hair, working it to the roots. It was a wedding gift from the dragon queen, something Essosi women used to grow their hair long and smooth. It worked, and in the one moon since their wedding Brienne’s hair had grown soft and silken, the dull straw yellow now shining under the sunlight.

She sighed in contentment as he massaged the fragrant oil into her scalp. He might like the sound better than her cries of pleasure.

As they dried and dressed, Jaime noted the tunic she donned. The material was of good quality, soft and sturdy, and the blue suited her eyes, but it was plain and unadorned. He thought of embroidery, perhaps on the collar and down the middle, maybe some beading along the sleeves and the hem. The cut could stay the same, practical and simple, suiting her build perfectly, but practicality didn’t have to mean austerity. She should never feel beneath pretty things.

“You’re staring,” Brienne said, pushing his hand away to button up his tunic, the movement swift and practiced.

“You’re beautiful,” he said, and he meant every word. “When they called Tarth the Sapphire Isle, they must be talking about your eyes.”

She burst into disbelieving laughter. “That is horrible,” she said. “Did you steal that from one of Tyrion’s bawdy songs?”

“I am, for once, not making a jape. Your Septa is wrong on all counts. You are beautiful. Were there any gold left in the Lannister coffers, I would adorn you with silk and jewels and you would still outshine the lot of them.”

Her smile fell. She stayed quiet as she helped him fasten his golden hand, choosing not to argue. It was clear to him, however, that she still did not believe him. No matter. It would take time, he knew, to show her that what made her unusual also made her beautiful, and in a way incomparable to others. _Plenty of time,_ he thought, _and more than just a straight line of stitches._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And thus we begin the first step of Jaime Tarth (nee Lannister)'s training to be the perfect trophy husband.
> 
> Today I experienced the true meaning of "Kill Your Darlings" and it HURTS. I might just post the murdered baby scenes as outtakes, or I might recycle them into proper scenes in proper fics later. They're dead, for now, but I'm keeping their bodies in my crypt.
> 
> Thank you for reading. As always, do tell me what you think!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime earns the trust of the people at Evenfall Hall. He also goes shopping.

Jaime fell into a new routine. After breaking fast, he would bring his and Brienne’s sheets and clothes to the scullery, where he worked on his needlework with Merry and Ara. At noon he’d take his meal, often with Brienne, but sometimes at the servant’s dining hall, talking to them, getting to know them. Merry had a lover, he gleaned one day, but she refused to say anything else. Joan had had a husband, lost trying to defend the castle from pirates, and no children. She had taken to care for the young servants as her own, and even the young steward—Stuart Storm, a name that had made Jaime laugh and laugh until his ribs hurt—answered to her, as she was one of the few who had served in Evenfall since last summer. He asked her why she didn’t just become the steward herself, and Joan laughed at him until she cried. Betimes, Ara would let slip of how lovely it would be to see the world, though she would dissemble when Jaime prodded further.

He learned the names of the other scullery maids, too, eight of them in sum. He mentioned their cracked and dry hands to Brienne, who frowned in displeasure, and the next sennight he brought them ointments to soothe their skin. They accepted the gift but looked at him as though he would take something from them. It made no sense. It was Brienne who had asked the maester to make the ointments. He was merely delivering them since he went to the scullery every day anyway.

When he told Brienne of this over lunch, she said, “They looked at you like that because they thought you meant to take them to your bed,” as though it was an obvious thing.

Something in him twisted, reminding him of his first interaction with Joan. He remembered the many stories of highborn men who trifled with a woman’s honour. He also remembered the late Evenstar, who had taken many women as his mistresses. He forced out a laugh. “Our bed isn’t big enough for the two of us and eight of them.”

“You often mentioned Merry and Ara. Do you want them?” Brienne asked, tone carefully neutral.

The thought of bedding anyone— _kissing_ anyone—other than Brienne turned his stomach. He pushed his plate away, suddenly no longer hungry. “No!”

“It is not uncommon for lords to take lovers. My lord father—”

He stood suddenly, cutting her words short. “Must I take you here over the dining table to prove that I want none but you?”

Brienne swallowed. He followed the movement of her throat, the darkening of her eyes, and he knew she took his offer in earnest. “No,” she said at length. “I believe you.”

He sat back down on his seat, tiredness overtaking him. “They would’ve made good companions for Myrcella,” he admitted. “She was a kind child, and I couldn’t—”

“It’s not your fault, Jaime.”

“Nothing’s more hateful than failing to protect the one you love.” How he has many failings and thus many times over more hateful.

Brienne took his hand, pulling him to his feet. “Come, let’s train.”

They fought hard and dirty—this was not the time for honour—and almost equally, convincing Jaime that Brienne was just as distraught as he was, if not more. Lovely, kind Brienne, who always took others’ pain as her own. It was hard to draw a line where their grapple ended and the undressing began. Their blood was pumping from the exercise, and their sweat-slicked bodies slid against each other in the shadowed corner behind the armoury as they moved in a languid rhythm. She had bitten his shoulder to muffle her cries, nearly drawing blood.

They bathed together, after, too exhausted for any more sex, their touches gentle as they washed each other’s back. Brienne then left, having to oversee the dock repairs and expansion, while he chose to remain behind. He sorted through the letters that arrived today, frowning, trying. He picked up a pen and tried to answer the few that he could answer without his lady’s counsel. His penstrokes did not slip as much as it had before, and by the end of it, his hand was not terribly ink-stained.

Nightfall arrived sooner than they thought it would, and it was time to take supper. He persuaded Lilley the cook to pack a basket of bread, cheese, smoked fish, and wine for him, promising her scrap fabrics from the scullery so she could sew a quilt for her babe. He took Brienne to the shore, and they took their supper on a blanket while listening to the dark water lap against each other. After the meal, they lay on the blanket, and he told her ludicrous stories about the stars.

“Did you know,” he said, affecting the voice of an old maester, “that stars are the freckles of the Maiden?”

Brienne laughed at the blasphemy before she caught herself.

“What’s wrong?”

She was quiet, then, “They said I sounded like a braying horse.”

He didn’t have to ask who _they_ were. “You’re the Evenstar. They should feel lucky to be graced by your joy.”

She kissed him, then, and soon the blanket ruched under them, tangling between their limbs, as they learned to please each other with nothing but moonlight to guide their touch.

He heard later that someone had seen them, though they had made their presence unknown, and the gossip spread quickly enough that everyone knew he went to long lengths to please his lady. No more questions were raised about his loyalty to their Lady Evenstar. The scullery maids grew relaxed in his presence now that it was clear that he wanted nothing but conversation and lessons in needlework.

And he got better. He’d been impatient, at the beginning, which had made his work worse. He learned to take his time, to find the right spot to pierce with his needle before he made a stitch. It took a little more time, but resulted in less tangled threads and fewer stitches having to be undone by his instructors’ order. Merry eventually declared him good enough to mend small tears, then bigger ones, working with a second piece of fabric to patch the hole. He knew he could call on his wager with Brienne already, at this point, but he didn’t. For once, he enjoyed his lessons. Patience, care, repetition. It wasn’t so different than learning fighting forms.

He still preened, though, when he at last signed his name without a smudge at the bottom of a letter to his brother. He sealed it, then called Maester Armen to send it to Dragonstone, saying nothing when the young maester’s eyebrows rose at the heft of the locked letter.

“You’ve improved, my Lord.”

Jaime inclined his head. “If I may ask for a favour, Maester Armen? Don’t mention this to my wife. She would be insufferable.”

The maester smiled thinly. “If you wish, Lord Tarth.”

 

* * *

 

One day, the scullery was in more hurry than usual. Even quiet, calm Ara was rushing through her stitches. At Jaime’s questioning glance, Merry said, “There’s a Meereenese merchant ship that just docked. The girls wanted to go shopping.” She seemed unhurried, at a glance, but she barely looked up from her work as she explained this to Jaime, not even to roll her eyes at him.

Jaime was rather surprised at this news, though he did wake up late this morning, rushing through his breakfast without making time to talk much to Brienne before leaving to the scullery. “They’re early. We’re not expecting them for another sennight, at least.”

Merry shrugged, but her even stitches did not slow.

When the clothes and sheets were hung and pinned, the maids all but rushed to the docks. Merry followed, and even she barely tried to feign her disinterest at this point. She looked back at him. “Are you coming with us, milord?”

He considered declining, hovering by the clotheslines.

“You could go again later with Lady Brienne, but if you come now you can buy something to surprise her with.”

In the end, he bought a collection of glass beads, silk that shifted from silver to sky-blue under the light, threads made of gold and silver and bronze. He spent more than any of the women, having more coin to spend. He got a plain wooden box from the shed and stashed his purchases in there, before placing it at his mending corner in the scullery. Brienne would know nothing of it.

Joan looked the things over and nodded in approval. “About to suggest you move on to embroidery, too, milord. Might make something pretty for the lady to wear.”

One of the maids lent him her embroidery hoop and taught him how to stretch the cloth taut with it. The hoop had, surprisingly, fit snugly in the gap between the golden hand’s thumb and forefinger, and only his left hand needed to work. Sweet Ara knew the most stitches, so she taught him with scrap muslin and plain-coloured threads. Straight stitches he knew already, but Ara taught him backstitches, chain stitches, knot stitches. The more complicated ones often made him tangle his thread beyond unravelling, and the whole thread had to be cut. It was good that he was not allowed to use the expensive threads for practice.

Some sennights after his purchase, he was trying to properly backstitch the glass beads he bought on a practice muslin when the scullery door swung open to reveal Brienne’s arrival. He threw the hoop under his stool and draped a long, torn shift over his lap and the cup of beads for extra measure.

“My lord,” Brienne greeted.

“My lady wife,” he answered, but he did not stand for fear of exposing the hoop under the stool. Under his ribcage, his heart was thumping. It almost made him laugh if he hadn’t been too busy looking at every scullery maid to seek confirmation that they would keep his secret.

“How do you fare? It has been a few moons since we made our wager.” Brienne sounded calm as ever, but he could tell from the glimmer in her impossibly blue eyes that she was eager. But then, he’d spilled less soup from his spoon, lately, and had called on the maester only to send letters, not to write them. His penmanship would never be a thing of beauty, and he chose his words short without flourishes, but those words were legible enough. It stood to reason that Brienne thought his needlework had also improved.

But Jaime had plans, and that didn’t involve him showing her an old mended vest. The maids knew about the silk and threads and beads, but as much as they thought the idea romantic, they were never great secret-keepers, from the sort of gossip being bandied about in the scullery. Jaime was never particularly religious, but at that moment, he prayed to the Old Gods and New that none of the maids would betray his confidence.

It was Ara, however, who came to answer his prayers.

“Begging your pardon, milady. His lordship’s doing very good,” Ara said, carefully, and Jaime turned his head so quick his neck nearly popped, aiming a glare at Ara. She continued, however, “Why, just yesterday he managed to fix a button in less than an hour. For an old man whose right hand is all thimble, he stitches well.”

The maids broke out in titters, and Jaime even managed to arrange his face to show mock affront. “If that’s what you think of me, Ara, rest assured I would not persuade Joan to take you to Dragonstone for the Queen’s nameday.”

Ara’s eyes went wide. She had been looking forward to sail to Dragonstone with the Evenfall party. “Milord, that isn’t my meaning! I was just jesting, you know that.”

Brienne scowled. “Jaime, do not scare the poor girl. She can come to Dragonstone if she wishes.”

“Thank you, milady,” Ara said, relief palpable and sincere, and Jaime felt a little guilty that Ara truly thought he would punish her. “And though I japed, it would take time, still, for Lord Jaime to win your wager,” Ara added, and Jaime affected a pout, though inside he was thinking of what sort of reward he would give her for the subterfuge.

Brienne nodded, then turned to him. “I am actually here to tell you that your brother wrote. He said the Queen requested your participation at the tourney, too.”

Jaime sucked a breath. He’d hoped, of course, to be allowed a place in the tourney, but he was no longer young, and crippled besides. He would make poor entertainment unless he was to play the fool. That was putting aside his many crimes: Kingslayer, Queenslayer, Kinslayer. All acknowledged by Queen Daenerys, and all pardoned by her hand, but a stain on his name, nonetheless. He had thought Brienne would be the sole competitor representing Tarth.

“I would ask you this later, but he asked for an answer posthaste.” Noticing his distress, Brienne bent down, gently laying a hand under his chin, tipping his face up to meet her gaze. “Are you alright, Jaime?”

His smile was wan. “I’ll do the lists,” he finally said.

She frowned a little, the way she did when she was confused, and he wanted nothing but to smooth the crinkle away from between her brows. He couldn’t, however, his hand fisted tightly in the shift over his lap. Carefully, she asked, “You don’t want the melee?”

Oh, he did, he so wanted to fight in the melee, but he shook his head. “You should do the melee. You’re bigger, stronger, younger. No one could even compare. And since we can’t both be in the melee lest they call foul, I’ll do the lists. I’m a better rider than you, anyway.”

All true, but Brienne’s mouth was set in a stubborn line. “I could do the lists instead, or I could shoot.” She was sincere, willing to throw away her certain victory for him, and he never loved her more than now. He also thought his wife could be foolishly self-sacrificing, sometimes.

“Are the Starks to attend?” he asked instead.

“Queen Sansa said so in her last letter.”

“And Arya Stark?”

“I believe she would be shooting.”

“No one in West or East is better than her with a bow. As for the lists, you ride well, love, but a self-respecting Dothraki bloodrider would unseat you two times out of five.” He grinned. “Win the melee, dearest wife, then crown Queen Sansa as your queen of love and beauty. That would surely get the tongues wagging.”

Brienne frowned. “Or perhaps it would get us burned by dragonfire.”

“Daenerys adores you too much for that, and she knew of your friendship with the Queen in the North. At most, the two queens will snipe at each other through supper, and everyone gets a mummer’s show to keep them entertained.” He moved to spread his arms wide in a careless shrug, but the shift started to slip off his lap and he quickly dropped his left hand to grip it, though his right still moved. It made for an odd sight, he knew, and from the edge of his sight, he could see Joan trembling from the laughter she was keeping at bay.

Brienne didn’t notice. She bit her lip, clearly thinking over his words. Careless though his jape had been, he touched the sensitive matter of their standing in the eyes of the two queens. Brienne had bent the knee to Queen Daenerys, as Lady of Tarth, but even freed of her oath of service to the Starks, her true loyalty was to the North. Had she been any less honourable, neither queen would let her rule Evenfall Hall. Jaime knew this, as surely as he knew that it was Brienne’s honour that assured both queens that she would not be corrupted by his Lannister ways. It was that same honour, however, that led her to mislike politics and spectacle. Regardless, he knew he won when she inclined her head and said, “I’ll write to Tyrion to put my name for the melee, and yours for the lists.” She glanced at his golden hand. “We will need to figure out how to attach a lance on your right arm before we begin training. I would not have my husband unseated at first tilt.”

“As my lady ser commands,” he said, bowing as much as he could while still seated and cradling a filthy shift.

Brienne nodded at him, then at the maids, before leaving the scullery.

As the door shut, Jaime let out a breath, the shift slipping from his grip and to the floor. He bent to fish for the hoop under the stool, and as he counted the stitches and threaded a new bead, he realized that the entire scullery was quiet. Had been, for a while now. He looked up to see all the maids staring at him.

“What?” he asked, perhaps a little too harshly from the way some of them flinched.

It was Joan, fierce and fearless, who broke the silence and demanded, “What are you doing with that muslin?”

“Beading?” he said, weakly. He waved the hoop, to what purpose he knew not.

Merry spoke next. “You’ve no time for practice, now. Not with the joust training and the tourney coming soon. You need to start with the silk.”

The silk was a material so delicate that Ara had not allowed him to work on it before he knew his stitches. He looked at the straight row of beads he’d stitched. “I don’t think I’m ready.”

“You are,” Ara said, softly, “You’ve stitched well for a while now and we have less time than we thought we had, what with you having to train for the lists. We can’t have Lady Brienne go to the Queen’s nameday without the silk.”

There was absolutely no reason why Brienne couldn’t just wear her usual attire to Dragonstone. That said, he thought of her disbelief when he called her beautiful. The women were absolutely right. It was time. The realization shook him. It started as a silly wager, a way for Brienne to make him work with his left hand, and now it was something else entirely.

“The silk, then,” he said, and the women, bless each and every one of them, cheered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Get in, loser, we're going shopping for our beautiful tall wife who deserves pretty things!
> 
> Thank you for still reading this fic. Hopefully the lack of filth in this chapter doesn't disappoint too much, since there's more plot™ happening. As usual, tell me what you think!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The journey to Dragonstone was supposed to be smooth sailing. So, of course, a storm hit them two days in.

They set sail to Dragonstone in a three-mast ship called the Crescent. It was a small retinue, as Tarth was a small island. Jaime and Brienne, the cook Lilley and her babe, three shepherds who wished to sell their wool, Merry and Ara, and a hound that had somehow escaped from the kennels and refused to be parted from Lilley’s babe. The rest were the ship’s crew, fishermen by trade. They left Evenfall Hall in the capable hands of Joan and Stuart the steward—Brienne could not for the life of her understand why Jaime still found the name funny after all these months. The winds were fair, and they would arrive in a sennight, said the captain, though perhaps longer should the winds turn on them.

So, naturally, a storm ran into them two days into the journey.

It went like this: one moment, Brienne was helping Jaime unstrap his golden hand as they prepared to go to bed. The next, the ship rocked so hard she was thrown off-balance, and when she tried to get up the floor tilted the opposite direction. Jaime groaned from somewhere to her left. She heard the captain bellowing orders at the crew from above board.

“I should help them,” she said, turning to Jaime. “What’s wrong?” she asked. He was cradling his left shin, his face ashen.

Jaime waved his hand. “Don’t worry about me,” he said, though he was clearly in pain. “I pulled a muscle, that’s all. Go and keep us from drowning.”

Brienne nodded. She hoisted herself up, testing her sea-legs before she made her way above board. The waves and wind rocked the ship around as if it was naught but a rowboat. She passed the cabin where the Merry, Ara, and Lilley stayed and decided to see if they were all alright. Merry looked green. Lilley was serene, her babe surprisingly fast asleep, the hound curled around them with its tail tucked and eyes wide open. Ara looked terrified, but when she saw Brienne, she asked, “Milady, do the men above need help?”

“Yes. I’m about to go up myself. Would you be alright here?”

Merry retched into a bucket, her hair held back by Lilley.

Ara straightened up, standing from her pallet, her feet steadier than Brienne had expected. “I want to help, milady. My Pa was a sailor. He taught me how to man a ship.”

Brienne nodded. “Come, then. Would your skirts get in the way?”

“No, milady. I can tuck it up, like so,” Ara said, pulling the hem of her skirt up and tucking it in her apron’s waistband. She wore cotton leggings underneath, but that did little to stop Lilley and Merry from staring at the blatant impropriety.

Brienne shrugged. “Alright. Let us go.”

The gust of wind blew rainwater and sea spray into them, drenching them as soon as they were on the deck. The water around the ship was a riot, crashing against the hull. Had the crew not brought cargo with them along with some weights for the ballast, the ship would have capsized. Brienne remembered the Dragon Queen’s many titles, and one was Stormborn. How apt that close to her nameday, a storm like this arrived. She prayed that they might survive it.

The men were pulling on ropes to stow the sails, lest they be shredded. Brienne immediately stood in line with the other crewmembers to pull and stow the sails, while Ara, tall and nimble, began climbing the main mast.

“Ara, what are you doing?” Brienne asked—the gust was too loud, and like as not Ara had not heard it. Her skirts were untucked from her waistband, now blowing in the wind like a sail of its own. Brienne feared that she might be blown away. “Get down here!” Brienne tried again, louder this time.

Ara heard it, and yelled, “Storm’s too strong—we need to find the low side!” She kept climbing until she reached the crow’s nest. Soon, she yelled “there!” as she pointed at an angle towards the starboard side. The captain squinted against the rainwater, looking at the direction Ara pointed at, and he turned the wheel. On and on they went, Ara yelling directions and the captain following them after he confirmed it with his own eyes, and after an age the wind grew gentler, the waves shallower.

By the time they accounted for all the crew—miraculously, none had been thrown overboard—they were thoroughly drenched but alive. Ara climbed down the mast with shaky legs, but her eyes were bright and alive, and when they returned below deck, Brienne told her, “Tomorrow and as long as we’re at sea, you are to wear breeches. Borrow a pair from one of the men. We would need you to man the ship with the rest of the crew. Could you manage that?”

Ara looked up from under her rain-drenched hair, staring at Brienne as though she had been sent by the Gods. Her eyes were alive. “Yes, milady.”

“When we get to Dragonstone, you may want to look into getting a few pairs for your own. Do not worry about the cost, as long as it’s reasonable.” With that, Brienne left Ara and went to her cabin.

She entered to find Jaime propped up the headboard, his left leg extended on the bed. His golden hand, inexplicably, was attached again, even though she took it off him right before the storm hit. He looked at her with wide eyes, and she wondered if she looked even worse than usual, with her hair limp and wet and her clothes dripping sea spray. She squeezed out water from her hair. The drips were loud against the floor planks.

He cleared his throat. “How’s everything?” he asked.

“Well, we’re all alive,” Brienne said as she began stripping off her sodden clothes. Now that her blood had settled, she felt cold to her bones. “No damage, not even a torn sail. The captain said we actually gained a day instead of losing one, which I will choose to see as the blessing of our Stormborn Queen. Did you know your sewing tutor could sail?”

Jaime leaned forward at this. “Which one? Wait, let me guess. Ara?”

“Yes. How did you know it wasn’t Merry?”

“Merry’s got a sharp tongue, but she’s no adventurer. Besides, Ara talks about traveling the world all the time. She was helping on deck?” Jaime asked, impressed. Proud, even. He also sounded like he was scheming something. But then, he always sounded like he was scheming, especially lately.

“She climbed the mast like a monkey and helped us see a way out of the storm. She said her father was a sailor.”

Jaime whistled. “Good woman. She never said anything about her father. Do you think she might be secretly an Ironborn bastard?”

“From the way she handled herself up there, it wouldn’t surprise me.” Brienne put on a loose long shift, too exhausted to wear anything with laces or buttons. “How is your leg?”

Grimacing, he said, “I think it’s a bit more than a pulled muscle.”

All lethargy was gone from Brienne as she turned to look at Jaime. “What do you mean?” she asked, touching his calf.

He yelped and jerked the leg away from her. “ _Wench._ I just told you it’s bad.”

“You didn’t tell me how bad,” Brienne said, her voice rising. She ran her hands over his breeches and found a lump, and this time Jaime gritted his teeth instead of yelling. “Your shin is swollen, and you can’t stand. Jaime, your leg is broken.”

Jaime’s jaw was set. “It isn’t. It will be all fine tomorrow, and when we get to Dragonstone—”

“We will get the Grand Maester to look at it properly. And no, you are not doing the lists.”

“Yes, I am.”

“I’m getting the chirurgeon,” Brienne declared, ignoring his mulish proclamations.

Jaime looked even more incredulous, more than when she suggested that perhaps he should not be jousting with a broken leg. “We don’t have a chirurgeon.”

Brienne pulled on a long robe, covering up her bare arms. “He’s no maester, but the captain knows how to stitch a wound, set a broken bone, and cut off a limb. I’d say that makes him a chirurgeon.”

As she made her way to the crew’s quarters, she heard Jaime yell behind her, “There will be no limb-cutting!”

As it turned out, and as it often was with the two of them, Brienne was right: Jaime’s leg was broken, somewhere in the middle of his shin. The captain was implacable in the delivery of this news, and he barely gave a warning before he set the bone, eliciting a yell from Jaime that reminded Brienne of the time that Dothraki cut off his hand. The captain then produced wooden planks and tied them to his leg to keep it in place, and reminded Jaime that he was, in no way, allowed to joust, not even if the Dragon Queen demanded it.

After he left, he said to Brienne, “It seemed like I am doomed to a life of Tarth denizens ordering me around.”

Not knowing what to say, Brienne kissed his temple before blowing the light out. She then settled behind Jaime, pulling him close to her, the way he once had drunkenly said made him feel safe.

“I’m still doing the lists,” Jaime muttered.

Her exhaustion was overtaking her, but she managed to sigh out, “Tyrion won’t let you,” before she finally succumbed to sleep.

 

* * *

 

In the morning, he was still sulking like a petulant child. After they broke fast over a tray Lilley delivered to their cabin, he practically shooed Brienne out. “Go, train under the sun. You’re Tarth’s only shot at glory, now.”

Brienne put her hands on her hips. If he hadn’t been in pain, she would have decked him a little. As it was, Jaime had refused to take milk of the poppy, insisting that he was alright, while at the same time griping about being unable to do anything. “Jaime, there is no need to be a child about this.”

“I am not,” he insisted, although he most definitely was. “I’ll be fine. I’ll practice my stitches. Ask for Merry and Ara to keep me company. I could use more instruction.”

Brienne bit her lip. “Jaime, I’m sorry. I asked Ara to help man the ship for the rest of our journey. I could still get Merry?”

Jaime sighed and shook his head. “Leave Merry be. I’ll manage on my own. Remind Lilley to send a tray here at noon?”

Brienne smiled a little, picking up her morning star and kite shield. “No need. I’ll lunch with you.” She leaned in to peck him quickly on the lips, then left the cabin before he could turn the kiss into anything more.

The next three days saw Brienne training on her own and occasionally with the crew—though none could even come close to her, being fishermen by trade—until there was no muscle that did not ache. She took her meals with Jaime, and at night they slept in each other’s arms, but during the day he insisted on staying in their cabin while she trained. Brienne asked if he was still disappointed about the lists, and she even tried to cajole him with promises that in the next tourney she would tilt and he could do the melee, but he pouted and griped and she had no choice but to leave him alone until his moods passed.

Brienne watched as Dragonstone slowly grew on the horizon, dark and jagged unlike the gentle slopes of Tarth. She thought it did not look much better than King’s Landing, which was now nothing but rubble. It certainly had nothing on the Riverlands, much less Tarth, but it was ripe with dragonglass and traditionally Targaryen, so she understood why Queen Daenerys chose to move the seat of power there.

The sight of land, strange and foreign it might be, was a welcome one. Just that morning Brienne had retched out her breakfast, her stomach turned by the strong waves. Much as she loved the sea, she rarely sailed for so long, and she was glad if she did not have to endure another day. She also ached for a real opponent, what with Jaime being practically bound to the bed.

Ara was brimming with excitement. The breeches she wore was too loose on her thin frame, but the seas had done well on her, her skin sun-kissed and her hair loose in the winds. Once again Brienne wondered if Ara was really an Ironborn bastard. “Oh, milady, it looks incredible,” she gushed.

“You don’t think Tarth is more beautiful?” Brienne asked.

“Tarth is plenty beautiful, but nothing so majestic as that.”

“I suppose.”

Ara turned to Brienne, a knowing smile on her lips. “Is Lord Jaime still below decks, milady? Wouldn’t he like to see the island?”

Brienne sighed. “He’s intent on growing mould, I think. He even refuses to let me stay with him.”

To this, Ara laughed. “Men, milady. He’d be right as rain soon enough, you’ll see.”

Brienne could not see what Ara had found funny, but the girl had bounded off to tighten a sail.

They docked that afternoon, one day earlier as the captain had said. There was a sennight still before the tourney and the main feast, but the island was already bustling with travellers, and not only nobilities. A mummer’s troupe had erected tents and put up a stage. Merchants and tradesmen were selling their wares from the docks to the gates of the keep. Even common folk were there simply for the merriment, or to catch sight of the queen’s dragons.

Tyrion welcomed them as they got off their carriage at the keep’s courtyard. He had shaven off his beard, trimmed his hair, and now he looked younger than he had before. “Brother, goodsister. Welcome to Dragonstone.” He had a loaf of freshly baked bread and a pile of salt on a platter, as was custom. “Jaime, what happened to you?” the dwarf asked as Brienne took the bread and a pinch of salt. His tone was less worried and more amused. “Had you gotten too deep into the wines, like me and our late sister?”

Jaime took his time chewing the bread and salt, and when he showed no indication of answering, Brienne said, “A storm hit us on the way, and he fell and broke his leg.”

Tyrion’s face fell. “The wines would have made a better story.”

“Oh, sod off with your stories,” Jaime said, having finally swallowed his bread and salt. “I’m fine. I can do the lists as planned.”

“No, you can’t,” Brienne said, at the same time as Tyrion saying, “Of course you are. That’s why you’re leaning on a cane.”

Jaime rolled his eyes at the two of them. “Take me to your maester, then. He’d tell you that I can take this bloody splint off when the tourney rolls around.” His stubbornness had ceased to be endearing days ago, and Brienne was sure he knew this, merely insisting to push her away. She was not sure why. He knew full well that broken bones did not heal so quickly.

“By all means,” Tyrion said, leading them to the castle. “But you’d best be warned that Grand Maester Alleras, as it turned out, is a woman. Sarella Sand, in fact.”

Brienne tried to rack her brain and remember where she’d heard the name before, but Jaime beat her to it. “Oberyn Martell’s bastard daughter?” The lines of his face were rigid, his green eyes narrow and cold.

“One and the same,” Tyrion said. “She only revealed herself a few days ago. Worry not, she’s less mutinous than her sisters. Preferred the books than the blade.”

“Best make sure she stays away from the hacksaw nonetheless,” Jaime said. “I’ve no interest in losing a leg.” He said it lightly, as a jest, but Brienne could tell from the set of his jaw that he had not relaxed.

“No one is cutting your leg off, Jaime,” Brienne said, exasperated, “but if you insist on getting on a horse anyway, we might have to.”

“Did you hear that, Tyrion? My own wife is threatening me. Why, just days ago she was about to make the ship’s captain cut my limb off.”

Brienne huffed. “You go and meet the Maester. I’ll find someone to spar with.” If Jaime insisted on being impossible, she was not about to entertain him.

She asked a servant to point her to the barracks. There, she found the queen’s Unsullied and Dothraki troops, as well as a smattering Westerosi soldiers. In the middle was Jorah Mormont in his white cloak, sparring with Sandor Clegane. These were two of her most dangerous opponents in the melee, she thought. They were strong, despite having years on her, and though she thought she stood a fair chance, she wondered if the months she had spent in Tarth had softened her. Jaime was the only one she had trained with, in all those months.

She breathed in the sulphuric air, listened to the sounds of metal meeting metal, and stepped forward to watch the spar. She felt the eyes of the men on her, but no one questioned her presence there. The land had two queens and a woman maester—she was now less of a novelty than years ago when she had to pose as a man in Renly’s tourney.

“Ser Brienne,” she heard from her left. She turned to see the queen’s Master of War, Grey Worm, his face grave as always. “Welcome to Dragonstone. Are you looking for a spar?”

“I am,” Brienne said, glad that he asked. “Would you be competing in the melee?”

“I would. I heard you would, too.” His gaze is still, measured. She knew that he was assessing her, though he did not betray his opinions of her.

“Yes.”

He did not smile, but the corners of his eyes softened a little. “I would be honoured to test your blade.”

She inclined her head. He barked out orders in High Valyrian to open room for the two of them, and he had her first bout of the day.

 

* * *

 

Jaime was taken to Grand Maester Sarella, who was indeed a woman, and a very young one still. She had Prince Oberyn’s eyes, as all the Sand Snakes had. They were eyes of the women who had killed Myrcella. The Grand Maester had various kinds of metal in her chain links, one in Valyrian steel, even, and knowing what it took to forge even a link must have meant that she was some sort of prodigy. She looked at his leg, and after a little bit of poking and prodding, said, “Well, it’s set properly, meaning there’s no need to break it just to set it again.” She ignored the brothers’ wince at that, continuing, “We need a better splint, and I have a crutch somewhere that would work better than that cane you have, but there isn’t much to do. Broken bones heal on their own.”

“How long would it take?” Jaime asked.

She looked up from the trunk where she was rummaging for gods-know-what. “Pardon?”

Tyrion cleared his throat. “My brother thought he could still compete in the tourney.”

The Grand Maester smiled. “Out of the question.” She went back to her rummaging.

“I would be riding,” Jaime said. “I wouldn’t be putting weight on the leg.”

With a flourish, she produced two long pieces of curved ivory, which would be a finer splint than scrap planks of wood that still smelled of fish. “Oh, of course you can ride.” Her smile did not falter the least when she took off Jaime’s splint then affixed the new one, while saying, “Two things could happen. Either the riding went well, but the unnecessary movements caused the bone to heal crooked, in which case I would need to break it again so it could be set properly, or your broken leg caused you to ride poorly, and you would get unseated at first tilt, possibly breaking more than just the one leg. I’m no great rider, nor do I know how to joust, so I could not possibly tell which has more likelihood of happening.” She patted the leg. “There. All done.”

Jaime exchanged a look with Tyrion, who looked entirely too smug. “I suppose I’ll watch from the stands, then.”

“Good. Here’s your crutch. Think of it as your new leg.” She shoved a crutch at Jaime, fine polished wood with leather padding at the top. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m in the middle of a breakthrough.” She gestured at her haphazard notes and various herbs, then at the open door.

When they were sufficiently out of earshot—which happened quicker than it would have had he still used the old rickety cane—Jaime said to Tyrion, “She’s a bit of an odd one, isn’t she?”

Tyrion looked at Jaime as if _he_ was the odd one. “Brother, have you been to the Citadel?”

“I never had the pleasure, no.” There was nothing interesting for Jaime in the Citadel. Books, books, and more books, all equally difficult to read.

“Everyone in the Citadel is like her. That’s why she managed to pass as a man when earning her links there. She fit right in.”

“Queer smiles and all?”

Tyrion shuddered. “Oh, no. That part is reserved for the cleverest ones. Remember Qyburn? Granted, he got kicked out of the Citadel, but my point stands.”

When they arrived at the quarters assigned to house Tarth, the men just finished carrying in their cargo. Aside from goods to trade at the docks and their personal belongings, they brought gifts for the queen. A sheepskin blanket, a figurine carved out of marble in her likeness, a crate of smoked fish that Jaime despised but Brienne insisted were delicacies. They also brought a sampling of the finest items they could buy from the Essossi merchant ships, to show that their little island was slowly growing into the trade hub they wanted it to be. The gifts were meagre compared to whatever the Westerlands and the Reach would bring in, but Brienne had ensured they brought things found in no other kingdoms in Westeros. No one held any illusions that Tarth was brimming with wealth besides.

Jaime dropped to a low settee, propping his broken foot on a low stool one of the men brought him. Ara appeared, curtseyed to Tyrion, and gave Jaime his sewing box. Despite spending all day the past few sennights sewing, he was not yet done. She then excused herself, saying that she should go look into some breeches as Lady Brienne suggested.

Tyrion, sitting on the settee across from Jaime, peered at the nondescript box. “What is that?”

Jaime ignored his brother as he took out his embroidery hoop, now half-filled with intricate designs of sun and moon in gold and silver threads, interspersed with rose-coloured beads.

“Jaime, have you been doing needlework?” Tyrion demanded again.

Jaime grinned. “Why yes, I have. Very perceptive of you.”

“ _Why?_ ”

Jaime could have explained from the start, but his little brother was rarely shocked lately, and he would not pass on the opportunity to get the most out of it. “You see, I made a wager with my dear wife.” He told Tyrion of his problems with his left hand and Brienne’s rather ingenious solution for it, while he worked on filling in the rough charcoal outline of the design with beads and metal threads. After practicing every day for months, Jaime could stitch fast while holding a conversation. With luck, he would finish in time for Daenerys’ nameday tourney and feast.

When Jaime finished telling Tyrion about how he had been embroidering while Brienne was on deck trying to save the ship from capsizing, and how in such conditions it truly was a blessing to have a right hand that was all thimble and no flesh, Tyrion had acquired a jug of wine and filled two goblets. He offered one to Jaime.

“No, thank you. I find my stitches straighter when I don’t drink.”

Tyrion stared, then drank both goblets. Jaime had half a mind to remind his little brother not to drink overmuch, but he supposed he was a queer sight indeed. A lord, with a broken leg and a golden hand, embroidering for his lady wife.

Then again, Jaime thought, we’ve got queens and a lady knight and a woman maester. Surely a man doing needlework was not so odd?

When Tyrion found his words, it was to ask, “So?”

“Well, my lady wife is cleverer than most gave her credit for. You may have noticed my improved penmanship in the last few months, as my control over this hand had also improved greatly.”

“Well, I am glad you could pen your own letters again, but the wager was for a straight line of stitches, not,” Tyrion waved his goblet in Jaime’s general direction, “this. What are you making anyway?”

Jaime grinned. “Oh, this? It’s a design based on the Tarth coat of arms.” He tilted the embroidery hoop and showed Tyrion the design. Jaime was quite proud of it, and even dour Merry had said it would make Lady Brienne happy. High compliment, that. He noticed Tyrion’s raised eyebrow, a manner of speech all Lannisters had perfected. “Alright, fine,” Jaime said. “I want to make her something pretty that also suits her. She has this twisted idea that beauty means frilly dresses and the prettier her clothing, the uglier she looks.”

“Well, she rather is ugly, isn’t she?”

“She _isn’t_ ,” Jaime said with venom. The last person who insinuated that, he had smacked with his golden hand.

“Jaime,” Tyrion said. “ _I’m_ ugly. I say this as someone intimately acquainted with the concept. I don’t doubt that she is kind, honourable, courageous, clever, and everything in between, and I don’t doubt that you love her with all your heart, as if you could love anyone in any other way, but she is ugly. I don’t need to repeat to you how.”

“If you truly believed that,” Jaime said, “why do you dress like that?”

Tyrion looked down to the fine velvet doublet he wore, red and black, Targaryen colours, hemmed with Lannister gold matching the hand of the queen pin on his chest. The material was fine, the cut impeccable. It suited him. “Why, this? It’s to show off my power, naturally.”

“Naturally.” That was also part of it, Jaime had to admit to himself. He wanted Brienne to wear things befitting her station as a highborn lady and a knight, but if that was all there was to it, he would not have insisted on something pretty. He would have commissioned something fine and expensive, but he would not personally sew them. No, she was beautiful, and it wasn’t enough for him to be the only one who saw it.

Tyrion filled the two goblets again. “I don’t want to fight over this. Regardless of whether she is ugly, she’s a remarkable woman who deserves all the fine things in life. To Brienne of Tarth, lady, knight, and a most excellent wife.” He pushed a goblet to Jaime and raised his own.

Begrudgingly, Jaime took it. “To Brienne, my lady wife, a singular beauty.” He ignored Tyrion’s look as he took a small sip, merely to honour the toast. He really could not afford losing control of his faculties.

Jaime had work to do, and only a sennight left.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me: "I don't know anything about sailing."  
> Also me: *writes a stormy sea scene*
> 
> Oh, and Jaime is a small spoon, especially when he's sulky. CHANGE MY MIND, I DARE YOU.
> 
> Also, Sarella Sand is a book character for those of you who only watched the show. She's one of Oberyn's daughters, and she was a true nerd, even went and dressed as a man to learn to be a maester at the Citadel under the name Alleras (basically just her name spelled backwards, so either she's a genius or she's not very creative). SHE'S AWESOME. In this fic, imagine the show version of the Dorne arc, except when that happened Sarella was just nerding out at the Citadel, away from all the murder of plotline and common sense.
> 
> Thank you for reading, and as usual, tell me what you think!


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brienne discovered, among other things, that many women placed bets on her victory at the tourney.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm Boo Boo The Fool for thinking I could stick to my five-chapter plan :)
> 
> At around 7500 words in chapter 5, I decided to split it into two. Here's the first part. The next (and final) part will come in a few hours, because I've procrastinated this fic enough.
> 
> I cannot thank you enough for reading thus far, and I hope you remain patient with me. Please enjoy chapter 5!

Brienne’s and Jaime’s routine in Dragonstone was almost exactly like their day in Tarth, except the air was colder, the seas not as blue, the people more varied as each day passed. They would wake up and break their fast together. Brienne would leave to train and spar, and with each day she felt her blows stronger, her eyes keener, all due to the benefit of training with her fellow competitors. Still, though, it felt barely enough. It relieved her greatly when, three days before the tourney, they heard that the North delegation had arrived.

“Are you sure you want to stay here?” Brienne asked, so close to begging, even though she knew his answer would remain the same. “I will ask Lady Arya to spar me today. You could stand to watch and have some fun.”

Jaime shrugged. “I would only be reminded of how I should also be there, training. No, let me heed the good maester’s orders and not overexert myself with excitement.” His stump, bare still, batted at a strand of hair that fell into his eye.

Brienne recognized that façade, his careless lion farce. Somehow, the fact that he was putting up a mummer’s mask hurt more than the rejection. She turned away, nodding.

Jaime’s left hand cupped her chin, turning her face to his. “Wife,” he said, exasperated, “I will come and watch you on the day of the tourney. But it will be a long day, and the maester said I should avoid moving this leg too much if I could.”

It was a reassurance, though she sensed he was hiding something yet.

He grinned. “I have the utmost belief that you would trounce anyone coming your way.”

She sighed and left, taking it as a dismissal.

It was only when she stepped out their chambers that she felt the full force of the rolling nausea brewing throughout breakfast. She straightened up her spine, tilting her head back, trying to keep her breathing steady. She’d felt this for a few days now, every morning without fail, and she knew this was no odd meal. This was something else.

She flagged a servant. “Excuse me. Could you please take me to the Grand Maester?”

The servant took Brienne to Grand Maester Sarella in her apothecary, which smelled strongly of spices, turning Brienne’s stomach even further. The Maester asked Brienne about her nausea, when it started, when it stopped. “And when,” said the Grand Maester eventually, “was your last moon’s blood?”

Brienne had rehearsed the answer over and over on the way, having known that it would eventually be asked. “Best I can tell it was seven or eight sennights ago. But it was never quite regular, especially when the war rolled around.” Poor food and poor living conditions tended to affect one’s moon’s blood. Brienne learned this quite early, as soon as she left Tarth and began what now could be called her adventure.

Grand Maester Sarella pursed her mouth. “Yes, that was common, too, but would you believe you’re not the first woman to come to me with complaints of illness in the morning in the two moons I’ve been here?”

Brienne’s eyes widened. She felt a blush rising to her cheeks. “Grand Maester, that isn’t possible. I have been taking moon tea.” Jaime and Brienne both wanted children, but they both agreed it would be best to wait until things settled down a little bit more before they tried. Brienne was young, still, and they were both needed while Tarth was still recovering.

“Tansy has to be dried properly to be effective, and the change in season the past few months might have affected the quality of the batch you’re drinking. We’re so used to a long summer we didn’t stop to think about these things. Even when the ingredients are dried properly, life finds a way, sometimes. And if the histories spoke true, it isn’t uncommon for more babes to be born after a war than during.” The Grand Maester paused, giving Brienne time to process the knowledge.

“I’m with child?” Brienne asked, though when the words left her mouth, she knew it to be certain. As if all that was left was for her to admit it to herself, to make it real.

“It’s a possibility. It makes more sense than nausea that only comes in the morning every day since you ate spoiled food some days ago.” The Grand Maester tilted her head, knowing. “Ser Brienne, I understand you would be competing in the tourney?”

Brienne felt weak. There it was. The Grand Maester would tell Brienne not to fight, lest she endangered her babe. There was no use denying it. “Yes.”

Grand Maester Sarella studied Brienne with cold, curious eyes. It was unsettling. Most strangers looked at her with revulsion, or fear, but rarely studiously as if she had been an interesting plant. At last, the maester asked, “What sort of armour do you use?”

Brienne was so surprised she could barely think of an answer. “Grand Maester?”

“Armour. Do you use full plate, leather, mail?”

Brienne looked at the Grand Maester, bewildered. “Full plate.”

“Padded?”

“Of course.” What fools with calluses for joints wore their full plate unpadded?

Grand Maester Sarella looked at Brienne’s middle with consternation, as though she could have seen the babe if she frowned hard enough. “Take care to put more padding around your middle, something soft, maybe goosefeathers wrapped in cotton, like a pillow. And try not to get hit.” She looked up, grinning. “Did you think I was going to tell you not to fight? Later, yes, when you’re heavy with the babe, but right now it isn’t even two moons yet. Besides, early studies at the Citadel showed that exercise might even help with the retching.”

Brienne was astonished. Terrified. “You don’t think I might lose the babe?”

“You may, even when you don’t fight. You’re highborn, so you eat better more than the common folk, sleep in better beds. You already fare better than most, in that regard. Besides, you’d been having bouts the past few days, and far as we could tell, the babe was fine. In a few months, your exercise shouldn’t be very violent, of course, but I would never stop the legendary Ser Brienne of Tarth from winning the first Dragon Queen’s Tourney.” The Grand Maester levelled her sight at Brienne, making the latter feel small despite the actual sizes of their persons. “You will win, yes?”

Brienne blinked. “I will try.”

The Grand Maester clapped her hands happily. “Good enough. I have a few gold dragons on your name, so take care that you do. Without endangering yourself or your babe, of course.”

“Of course.”

Grand Maester Sarella produced a small dark vial, saying, “In the meantime, you may sniff this to keep the retching at bay.”

Brienne looked at the vial curiously, but she did not take it.

“It’s peppermint oil. Nothing nefarious, I promise. I would never so openly poison someone with so many friends in high places.”

The Grand Maester shooed Brienne out of the apothecary, reminding her of the gold dragons placed on her name in the tourney before shoving the vial at her and shutting the door.

Brienne unstoppered the vial. The sharp smell of peppermint wafted into the air. Its effect was immediate; her stomach stilled. She took a few drops of the oil to rub on her neck and over her lips before she made her way to the barracks. She talked to the master-at-arms, a scarred, thickset Unsullied, and he happily enough lent her a tourney sword. Since Oathkeeper had been returned to the Starks, Brienne had reverted to her old favoured weapon, a morning star. She planned on doing the melee with it, in fact, but the weapon had a shorter range and relied on impact: two things that might not bode well for a pregnant woman. She took the tourney sword, a finely forged, unadorned longsword with blunted edges and impeccable balance, borrowed a small buckler that was lighter than her kite shield, and thanked the Unsullied master-at-arms for it.

Brienne found Arya Stark shooting targets with a longbow, her arrows flying fast and true. Jaime was right. They should not even consider competing against her.

“Brienne,” Arya greeted, as usual ignoring titles and pleasantries. “Looking for a bout?”

Brienne nodded. “Lady Arya. If you’re done torturing the targets and scaring the men.”

“I’m no lady.”

Brienne sighed. They always had this conversation. “I was about to ask if you mind if we spar elsewhere, actually. I need a favour.”

They went to a field by a cliff, where the smell of sea spray mixed with volcanic ash. There they had their bout, long and rigorous, Brienne having difficulty keeping up with Arya’s speed while Arya constantly had to pay attention and avoid Brienne’s long reach. By the end of it, Arya had her knife by Brienne’s throat, and Brienne’s own tourney sword had been knocked out of her hand, her buckler held in place by the sword in Arya’s other hand.

“You’ve gotten slow,” Arya accused, pulling her knife away from Brienne’s throat.

Brienne nodded jerkily. It was not a pleasant thing to have the truth shoved into one’s face, but Arya Stark had never been one to mince her words. Brienne had gotten slow, and though she’d had a few days sparring against other contenders for the melee, they were all games of strength and endurance, not speed. “I have.” She had hoped the tourney sword she borrowed from the Dragonstone armoury would lend her more speed and finesse, but it had been a while since used a sword at all.

“So, what’s this favour you want to ask?”

“We’ve tomorrow and the day after before the tourney. Would you mind sparring with me for those two days? Nobody is as quick as you and as you noted, I have gotten slow.”

“You’re as strong as any of them. What do you need speed for?” Arya asked, though it was clear the prospect of sparring against Brienne for three days straight excited her, from the grin forming on her face.

“I have to have an edge.” Then, it spilled out of Brienne’s mouth, unbidden: “I’m with child.”

Arya blinked.

“The Maester said I could still compete, but she cautioned against getting hit too much. That, and I would have to wear additional padding under my armour, which would do no favours for my speed.” Guilt rolled in Brienne’s belly, and she drew a sharp inhale to pull the scent of peppermint to her. She had told no one, not even Jaime. She could have given Arya a vague answer about wanting to improve, but all that would be a lie. The truth was she would no longer fight for the sake of solely winning the melee, but also for the sake of her babe. Besides, lying to Arya Stark was always a futile, if not foolish, endeavour.

The young Stark looked as though she had a thousand questions, and maybe she did, but in the end, she nodded. “Alright. You should wear your padded armour for the next two days, then, to get used to it. I’ll meet you here directly?” She looked at Brienne’s borrowed buckler. “Your sword will do, but the buckler hardly gives you enough protection. I can get a kite shield made for you. Wood, not steel, else there’s no point trying to be quick.”

“Thank you, Lady Arya.”

Arya waved her hand. “I’m not a lady. This is more fun than shooting, anyway. Sansa should’ve let me do the melee.”

“Why didn’t she?” Brienne asked. The Braavosi water dance would have made for good entertainment in a tourney.

“She said it would be difficult for me to win without killing, and I should definitely avoid killing anyone for the sake of diplomacy.” Arya scowled—no, pouted. She knew well that her older sister was right, though she was loath to admit it.

“Your sister is wise.”

Arya sighed a long-suffering sigh. “She’s so damn _clever._ ” She sheathed her knife and lifted her needle, feet apart in a ready stance, and Brienne knew the conversation was closed.

 

* * *

 

It was, too soon, the day of the tourney. Brienne wondered if she was ready, as she hadn’t defeated Arya once in their bouts, despite the smaller girl clearly holding back from landing any blows on her. At the very least, the hastily commissioned kite shield served Brienne well, its size close enough to her usual shield, though lighter by half. Arya had told Brienne that Queen Sansa paid more to have the Tarth coat of arms painted on it, which had inexplicably brought tears to Brienne’s eyes. It was harder to remain stoic, now, with her getting sick every morning and worrying about her babe for the rest of the day.

“You’ve got to stop thinking about the babe,” Arya had said, frustrated. “You shouldn’t have to carry a babe to not want to get hit.”

All very sensible advice, of course, except the weight on Brienne’s mind was not only that she might lose the babe, but also that she had not told Jaime, yet. Every morning, she had said to herself that she would tell him that night. Every night, Jaime had taken supper with his brother, only returning once she had gone to bed. For all his protests about not putting weight on his broken leg, he certainly had gone out of his way to avoid her, and it was driving her mad.

This morning, before the tourney, Brienne felt queasier than before. It was just the nerves, she thought, nothing else. She stuck to the fruits, having noticed that bread did not agree with her the past few days. She had put a drop of peppermint oil in her napkin, secretly, when Jaime had not been looking, and now she pretended to wipe her mouth every time she felt her stomach turn. He did not question it, seemingly absorbed in his own thoughts too.

Arya arrived just as Brienne pushed her plate away, having had her fill. “Thought you might want help to put on your armour,” she said.

Brienne exhaled in relief. “Thank you,” she said. “Excuse us, Jaime.”

Jaime waved his golden hand absently. “No, go ahead. I’d be useless now anyway.” He gave her a slight smile, though they did not reach his calculating eyes.

In the bedroom, Arya helped Brienne fasten the laces and straps of her armour, keeping the padding in place, making sure it was snug but not too tight. Brienne was quiet throughout, only opening her mouth to say something to the effect of “here”, or, “tighter.”

When they were done, Arya stepped back and Brienne moved through her stances, trying the fit of the armour. Her belly was still flat, but she felt the changes to her body beginning to stir nonetheless. Arya raised an eyebrow. “How’re you feeling?”

“Odd,” Brienne answered. That was the truth of it. She felt odd.

Arya clicked her tongue. “Can’t go fighting feeling like that. Sansa would be disappointed if you lose.”

“How is it,” she wondered aloud, “that people are all hoping for me to win?”

“Not everyone. The women, mostly. The men want you to lose just fine, except maybe your stupid husband. Speaking of,” Arya said, jerking her head towards the sitting room, “he’s being strange. I thought he would fight me for the right to help you dress, but he just sat there and moped.”

Brienne sighed. “He’s been sulking because he broke his leg. Pay him no mind.”

“Have you been taking your own advice, then?” Arya asked with a raised eyebrow.

“He’s my husband. I reserve the right to be concerned.”

A sharp knock sounded from the other side of the bedroom door. “Brienne,” Jaime said, his voice muffled, “it’s almost time.”

Arya opened the door wide. “I’m going to go first,” she said to Brienne. To Jaime, Arya said, “If she loses because she’s too busy thinking about you, Sansa will make you pay.”

Jaime inclined his head. “Lady Arya.”

Arya made a rude hand gesture. “Not a lady.” Then, she left.

“That girl is charming as ever,” Jaime noted. “My lady wife. You look formidable.” He limped on his crutch towards Brienne, and when he was close enough, he tucked an errant strand of hair behind her ear.

Brienne felt his touch burning her as though it was their first night together, which made no sense to her until she realized that this was the first time that he looked at her without scorn, touched her without grudge, since he broke his leg. It felt as if it had been an age. She cleared her throat. “Thank you. Will you come watch the tourney?” she asked. He had said he would, but there was a change in him that made her lose her footing, even though he was the one hobbling on a crutch.

“The alternative would have me missing a story that would be recorded in ballads.” He smiled, doubtless aware of her erstwhile dream of a sung knight. “I would never miss it. Before that, however,” he said, “I would like to claim my prize.”

Brienne frowned, but her eyebrows soon rose as Jaime produced from inside his pocket a silk handkerchief, shifting from blue to silver in the sunlight. She took it from him and carefully, delicately cradled it in her hands. It was about two handbreadths wide on each side, a perfect square. On one corner was a sun formed in glorious golden thread. The corner across it bore a crescent moon, silver and striking. Connecting the two, lining the sides, were wavy lines of rose-coloured beads, calling on the image of the Tarth waters at dusk. The embroidery was dense and intricate, threads overlapping each other, but the middle was left empty, rendering it a functional kerchief still, provided she could bear the thought of ruining it with filth or spilled ink. Brienne looked up from the kerchief to Jaime’s mirthful eyes.

“Truth be told, I was rather thankful for the storm. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have had enough time to finish this.”

Her face was still frozen agape, but her hand managed to thump him none-too-gently on the shoulder, jostling him a little.

“I suppose I deserved that,” he said, somehow managing a careless shrug while still leaning on his crutch.

“You—you—” She stumbled about for the right words, and he, for once, managed to not say anything. “You _dolt,_ ” she said in the end. “You haven’t been sulking. You’ve been _sewing._ ”

“Lest you forget, it was you who challenged me to sew.”

“To do a straight stitch, not—this. Jaime, what _is_ this?” Brienne asked, though it should be obvious enough. Under the _what_ was the _how,_ and most importantly, _why_. It was something beautiful women, ladies of great houses, would carry around. It was nothing like anything Brienne Tarth had in her possession, except maybe the now-gone Oathkeeper. That, too, had been beautiful bordering on ostentatious. That, too, had been a gift from Jaime.

Jaime lifted her right hand with his golden hand, cradling it in the cold metal palm. With his flesh hand, he took the kerchief and laid it over her wrist. “I understand knights should wear the favour of their lady. Or in this case, lord.” He flailed his hand about, trying to bring the kerchief to loop around her hand, before he gave up and said, “This ruins the effect I was trying to evoke, but would my lady wife kindly help me with this?”

Brienne was quiet as she helped him tie the kerchief, under the vambraces but over her fitted gloves. It oddly matched the dull gleam of her blue-tinted armour, a splash of delicate beauty contrasting the straight practical lines of the metal plate.

Jaime took a step back and grinned widely. “It becomes you.”

Brienne fought back the furious blush trying to overcome her. Jaime had said it suited _her,_ not her armour or her gloves. The notion of such a delicate thing belonging on her person would have been an insult, had it come from any other person, but from Jaime, it almost sounded like a compliment. She looked down on her wrist, the silver-blue silk wrapped snugly around it, the beads and embroidery at the corners swaying from the knot. Jaime had made this for her. He had not commissioned it. He had sewn every stitch, every bead on the silk himself, and she could only wonder at the effort it must have taken for him to do so. “Thank you.”

He cupped her chin, pulling her face up and closer to his. “I think you could thank me better than that, yes?”

She averted her eyes. “We would be late for the tourney.”

He pouted.

She sighed. “One kiss, then. No more.”

It was only when he started kissing her that she realized she hadn’t said the kiss had to be quick. As she melted into his touch, she hoped Queen Daenerys would not take their tardiness as an insult.

Jaime pulled back first, a little frown on his face. “You smell like peppermints.”

She averted her eyes. “Do I?”

He leaned in again, sniffing her, quickly stealing another kiss as he did so. “Yes. Definitely peppermint. Why do you smell like peppermint?”

Brienne extricated herself from his embrace, her face burning. “That’s one kiss too many. Come now, before we’re actually late.”

Jaime’s jaws were set in the way they were when he was about to argue with her, but then he sighed and offered his arm, and they made their way to the tourney.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shout-out to Eisoj5 and ginar369 for seeing through Jaime's sulky facade. Our boi just wants to sew in peace! Also shout-out to nathybozo for seeing through me and immediately recognizing morning sickness even though I was trying to pass it off as seasickness, lmao. And of course, thank you to all of you for reading this far. On to the tourney! 
> 
> Oh, and as usual, do tell me what you think of the chapter in the comments below <3


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The tourney happened. After, secrets were spilled and speeches were made.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Boy oh boy am I glad I decided to split the chapter into two, because this chapter is 7000+ words on its own. If I had posted it with what is now Chapter 5, it would have been more than 10k, more than 1/3rd of the entire story.
> 
> Anyway, here's the last chapter! I mangled how a tourney works for... uh... I guess call it artistic license?
> 
> Thank you for reading until the end.

* * *

The tourney field was a rolling expanse of green field, shadowed by tents erected over the spectator seats. The archery competition had begun, but only just. Arya had not taken her turn yet.

They were seated next to the Northern retinue, Jaime next to Brienne, and Brienne in the place of honour right next to Queen Sansa. Her dress was the lightest grey silk, suitable for the warm weather, but the bodice was a cage of weirwood branches twining over her breasts, the branches carved ivory and the leaves hammered out of copper. On her head was her direwolf circlet. Her hair was worn in a long braid curled and fastened at the nape of her neck with a plain silver pin. Sitting on a bench rather than a throne of dragon maw, Sansa Stark still looked every inch the queen.

On Queen Sansa’s left was a stretch of empty seats, reserved for her sister and Theon Greyjoy, then rows of southern lord and ladies. On a dais in the middle of the stands was Queen Daenerys. She sat in a throne fashioned out of the skull of the Night King’s wight dragon. Her gown exposed her throat and her arms, thin and light, but dyed black and red, the colours of her house. She wore no crown, her silver-white hair and Dothraki braids testament enough of her station.

The two queens barely acknowledged each other’s presence, as if the ghost of Jon Snow still hung between them. The North hadn’t forgiven the dragon queen for that, though his sacrifice had ended the Long Night. The north’s attendance in this fete was mere formality, a gesture to appease. Tyrion had told Jaime that Queen Sansa had extended an invitation for her own nameday feast, four months hence, which Queen Daenerys had accepted with icy grace. Neither of them had the appetite for another war so soon after the last one ended.

Arya Stark’s turn arrived, and she took her place fifty paces from the target. To no one’s surprise, her arrows flew true, as though the strong coastal wind had no bearing on her aim, and no one else even came close. Others took their turns, after, and they took an age. Jaime had begun to grow bored. Would that he had taken his embroidery hoop with him. He had finished in time for the tourney, but he could always start a new piece, at least to keep himself from the dullness. A few times, he leaned in to make an odd comment here and there, but Brienne shushed him, not wanting to be impolite.

He couldn’t even twiddle his thumbs, as he only had one thumb.

After what felt like all his hairs turning white, it was over. Grey Worm, the Unsullied General, called out the winner, garnering polite applause from the spectators. Not a single one of them were surprised, but by being leaps and bounds better than her competition, she had made it a terribly dull contest.

Missandei presented Arya with a wreath of lavenders, which Arya took. She looked down on it, frowning a little, as though she had not considered who she would crown as her Queen of Love and Beauty. She looked up, then, and tossed the wreath in the air. It flew in a perfect arc and landed on Queen Daenerys’ lap.

The crowd gasped, a few cheered, but Jaime barked out a laugh. The girl is never boring, this much he could say about her.

Arya grinned. “It matches your eyes, Your Grace,” she said. The crowd froze, unsure if this was to be taken as praise or insult to their queen, but then Daenerys smiled and placed the crown on her head, and the crowd cheered again, loud and joyous. Jaime craned his neck to see his brother, and as expected, Tyrion looked relieved at the averted disaster.

Arya returned to the stands and took a seat on Queen Sansa’s left. “No incidents, as you requested,” Arya muttered under her breath.

“Well done,” Sansa said, betraying her pride. “The comment on her eyes is a nice touch.”

“It’s true,” Arya said, indignant.

“I never said it wasn’t,” Sansa said, and she turned her head to see Queen Daenerys and her lavender crown. “It does suit her rather well, does it not?”

 

* * *

 

Lunch was served after the first half of the lists. The spread covered everything from roasted capons to fish cakes, apricot pies and chilled wine. Brienne’s sickness had waned by lunchtime, leaving a magnificent appetite behind. She tasted a little bit of everything, though abstaining on the wine and mead as usual. A small area near the feast table was filled with merchants and cooks selling their own fares, specialties, and delicacies from their regions. A Dornish merchant sold underripe mangoes, sour and tangy, and to her surprise, she liked it. Jaime watched her with amusement whenever she returned to their table bringing stranger and stranger foods, and he dutifully tasted each, somehow almost matching her appetite.

They closed the courses with a serving of boiled apples, sliced and arranged to look like a dragon, spun sugar as its fire. Brienne took a bite, enjoying the bittersweet burnt sugar. “I wonder,” Brienne said, carefully lest anyone listening might take umbrage, “if the palace servants and retinues are eating as well as we are.”

Tyrion washed down his food with wine, then said, “The queen made sure of it. She even wanted them to feast with the lords and ladies, but Lord Commander Mormont insisted against it, lest we compromise the security and offend the nobility. So instead, the areas are separated, but the dishes served are the same.”

“That’s very liberal of her,” Jaime said. “Speaking of servants, Brienne, I think our Ara is wasted in the scullery.”

Brienne took a gulp of water and pushed her empty dish away, finally done. “She sails too well to be bound to one place,” she said. “What do you have in mind?”

“I’ve been talking with our dear brother,” Jaime said, grinning as Tyrion lifted his goblet to salute them, “when I did my needlework at his office, and he agreed to employ Ara as part of Her Grace’s ship crew. The girl often talks of adventuring, and the queen travels often enough to Essos. Besides, I need to reward her for lying to you so many times about my supposed inadequacy with the needle.”

“Jaime,” Brienne chided, laughter bubbling in her throat, but she sobered soon enough. “Is this what she wants?” In her heart of hearts, Brienne knew it to be sure. After all, had she not had a similar calling herself? And yet, she did not want to presume.

“I haven’t asked. I want to ask you, first, if you would release her from her service, should she want this.”

Brienne smiled, thinking of Ara’s joy over loaned breeches and allowance to procure her own pair. “She’s no prisoner of mine. If she consents, and I think she will, then I give her my blessing.”

“Excellent,” Tyrion said, clapping his hands. “If she’s as good as you’ve been telling me, mayhaps I would not have to spend half my travels retching into a bucket.”

By the time they returned to the stands to watch the second half of the lists, their full bellies and the cool spring wind lulled them to a light doze. Neither of them had eaten this much in a long while. Jaime leaned on Brienne’s solid armour, somehow comfortable despite the cold metal surface, and she had taken off her gloves so they could entwine their fingers. Sometime between the tilts, she felt herself drifting, and not even the crowd’s cheers roused her.

A hand fell on Brienne’s shoulder, shaking her awake.

“Brienne,” Arya said, looking reproachful. “You’ve less than an hour to get ready for the melee.”

Brienne hummed and disentangled her fingers from Jaime’s. He woke up as soon as her touch left him. “Is it time?” he asked.

Brienne tried to resist a yawn, then failing. “I suppose so.” She stood up. “I should get ready and loosen my limbs.”

He tugged on her arm, pulling her down to kiss her in a manner most improper for court. Someone in the crowd whistled, and Brienne was sure it had nothing to do with the tilt happening below. Jaime let her go, his face smug. “For luck.”

Brienne ignored her own burning face, making her way down. Soon the final tilt would be over, the winner—either Khal Moro or Theon Greyjoy—would crown their queen of love and beauty, and the fence would be removed, leaving the court open and free for the melee. In those minutes, she stretched her limbs, checked her armour buckles, practiced her stance. With her under the wide tent were twenty or so people with their own blunted weapons of choice. Her competitors. Among them were the men she’d sparred before, Yara Greyjoy, a Mormont warrior-woman whose name Brienne could not remember, Lord Gendry Baratheon, Addam Marbrand, and even her erstwhile squire Podrick Payne. They were all of them seasoned war survivors. None of them were with child but Brienne.

“How are you feeling this afternoon, Ser Podrick?” Brienne asked, trying to quiet her jittery stomach with small talk. She was now aware that she might have eaten a tad too much. A blow to her middle might spill her lunch to the ground. She unstoppered her peppermint vial and quickly swiped the oil over her lips.

“I’m well, Ser,” Pod answered, though he seemed just as nervous as she. How strange. Pod is as capable a fighter as anyone here. She had trained him well, after all.

 “That is good to hear,” she said anyway. It was not her place to interrogate him. He was a man grown, and he would tell her if aught was amiss.

“Yes. It’s been peaceful.” He flashed her a smile, kind and guileless. She had missed Pod. She had considered him a younger brother, mayhaps almost a son, and if not for his duties in the Westerlands, she would have invited him to stay in Evenfall Hall. He would make a fine master-at-arms, skilled but kind and patient enough to teach.

Curiously, she asked, “Who would you crown, if you win?” Jaime had told her to crown Sansa if she won, and after Arya had crowned Daenerys, it would be a reasonable option. Nonetheless, the idea sat wrong with Brienne, though she was not sure why.

“Well, I won’t. Win, that is. Everyone here’s got more experience than me.”

“Everyone here is older than you.”

“Well, I’d stand a fair chance against at least half of them, I think. But I don’t think I would get past Ser Sandor, much less you.” He fiddled with his belt. “Besides, the woman I am courting—she’s no lady, and she’s not here in Dragonstone.”

“You’re courting someone,” Brienne said, astonished. She shouldn’t have been. Pod was a man grown, now, no longer a hapless youth. And yet.

Pod looked down, a bashful smile lighting up his face. “Yes, Ser. It’s early days, still, but—well.”

Brienne asked him about the girl, and Pod told his erstwhile mentor about the woman, a clever and kind daughter of a midwife in the Westerlands. She had nursed him back to health when a fever had taken him.

Sometime in between, Yara Greyjoy joined their conversation and told them of _her_ courtship with a woman, one with pale milky skin and hair like starlight, kind and gentle and proud. The longer Yara described this woman, the more she resembled Daenerys Targaryen. Yara’s eyes twinkled like it was a great jest, but her grin softened over time, and by the end of it she bore the look of a lovestruck maiden, even armoured and armed. Some of the men jeered at her, but some others bore the same look on their faces. Half the kingdom was in love with the dragon queen. Brienne knew this, she’d heard people say so many times, but ensconced in Tarth and away from the mainland, she had never seen it so blatantly before.

Brienne’s eyes caught Jorah Mormont’s, wearing his white cloak and golden armour even in the tourney. It was no secret that he loved the queen most of all, though the queen’s love for him was a different sort. He said naught as the competitors traded stories. Brienne thought about her short service in Renly’s Rainbow Guard, and she wondered. _Had Renly lived would I bear Ser Jorah’s fate?_

“That’s very pretty,” Pod said, breaking her out of her thoughts.

“Pardon me?”

Pod gestured to the kerchief wrapped around her wrist. “That kerchief. Is it a favour?”

“Oh,” Brienne exhaled, and it was almost a laugh. “Yes, it’s—Jaime made it for me.”

The horns sounded, cutting off Pod before he could comment further. They were to take their places. Brienne put on her helmet, stepping out under the afternoon sun, and as the kerchief shimmered under her sun, she thought—

_Had Renly lived would I be with Jaime still?_

 

* * *

 

Jaime watched the final tilt absently, unable to doze again now that Brienne had left to prepare for the melee. She’d smelled of peppermints, he recalled, but amidst the excitement and the people rubbing elbows with them, he had dropped the matter. When they'd dozed after lunch, she’d still smelled of peppermints, but he'd been too sleepy to ask.

The crowd cheered and Jaime realized the Dothraki khal had won the final tilt against Theon Greyjoy. A crown of violets was presented to him. He tossed it at Queen Sansa.

Jaime wondered if the khal truly wanted to court Sansa or if he merely found her beautiful, but Sansa inclined her head at Daenerys after donning the flower crown over her direwolf circlet. Once more, Jaime was grateful for his luck that he could live far away from these political schemes and diplomatic gestures. Life on Tarth was simple and easy, and he planned to keep it that way.

He watched as the contestants walked into the field, stopping to draw a number out of a bag before placing themselves on the assigned spots scattered around the field. Brienne was situated off-centre. Poor Sandor Clegane got a centre spot, surrounded by five contestants—one of whom was Yara Greyjoy with twin short swords, her grin feral—who were trading looks to promise a temporary truce. Pod’s number corresponded to a spot at the far edge, the lucky lad.

The horn sounded once more. The action began before the sound ended, a flurry of blades and fierce yells. Jaime leaned forward, as though he could will himself into the thick of it. Gods, but he missed a melee. His last tourney, he had been whole of body, but hollow inside. He had long forgotten what it felt like to be truly whole, to be something else other than his mask.

Until, of course, a lumbering wench had dragged him across half the continent, and it took him years until he’d realized she’d still had him on a tether, and all he could do was keep chasing her.

Whenever the next tourney happened, he would be there, and he would not be sitting with a broken leg. Brienne had suggested a hook, but in the middle of learning to sew and turning Tarth into a worthy trading post, it had been forgotten. Maybe when they come home, he would get one smithed. It would make his practices more interesting, even if nothing came out of it.

His mind went through all this, but his eyes stuck to the field, and not only on his lady wife. There were an ebb and flow to the fight. With no teams or loyalties set, alliances were temporary at best. Brienne, though, had no time for even the most fleeting of truces. The competitors had counted her as one to fight at all costs, and now she was trading blows with three others. Still fewer opponents than Clegane, because Jaime supposed no one really knew about that time she’d nearly killed the Hound.

Her movements were quick, clever, and instead of meeting blows head-on, she weaved around and deflected with the edge of her tourney sword and kite shield. She was no hammer, today. She was a needle. Jaime turned to see Arya Stark. There was only one Braavosi water dancer who could teach Brienne how to do this.

The question, of course, was _why._

Jaime didn’t even know that Brienne was going to use a borrowed sword and wooden shield. He thought she would still use her favoured morning star paired with a heavy shield. The few conversations they’d had when he hadn’t been hiding at Tyrion’s study doing needlework, she never mentioned changing weapons. Besides, this style—the evasion and dodges, subtle side-steps, they would hardly come naturally to her. She had her whole life training with her size and strength as her advantage, and now her size would work against her, her strength rendered unused.

It was as if she had suddenly feared contact.

Another piece of a riddle. The peppermint, then this. But what was the answer?

Arya caught Jaime’s stare and jerked her head towards the field. “Watch,” she commanded him.

He turned back to watch. Brienne had felled two of her opponents, and the last one dropped under Jorah Mormont shield bash. The Lord Commander of the Queensguard now faced Brienne, and her focus narrowed to him, and only him. It was then that Lady Mormont—Jorah’s niece, a warrior like every other Mormont women—leapt up and towards Brienne’s flank, her sword held high in the sky.

Jaime’s warning yell was a reaction rather than a calculated move, a remnant of those long winter months when they fought by each other’s side against ice spiders and endless Others.

His voice should have been drowned by the noise of the swords and the cheers of the crowd, but Brienne’s head jerked anyway to check her flank, and she parried the Mormont woman’s blow with her shield. Lady Mormont’s weight and momentum splintered the wood and knocked Brienne back, but she didn’t fall. She pivoted on one foot, the other kicking the smaller woman. Lady Mormont flew three feet, landing on her side, and Pod descended upon her, leaving Brienne free to parry an incoming slash from Ser Jorah.

He was glad that his breeches were laced tight and his doublet fell past his knees, lest someone might notice the indecent attention he paid on his wife’s fighting.

Pod, somehow, took on the duty of guarding Brienne’s back—again—even though it might be the stupidest thing the boy had done, pinning him against two other opponents. Yet he stood there, immovable as a wall, as Brienne’s attention were arrested by Ser Jorah.

In the end, it was not Brienne who finally knocked Ser Jorah to the dust, but Clegane. That left three of them: Pod and Brienne against Clegane. Clegane was just about Jaime’s age, though, and though he was good, the absence of an actual threat of death dulled his edges. The man had no use for pride for its own sake. Soon, he yielded too.

Which left—against all odds—Podrick, against Brienne.

The lad had waded through half the field to once more squire for his Ser Lady, and now they had to face each other. It was hilarious. Jaime would laugh, if not for the way the two circled each other.

What most in attendance didn’t know was that Brienne had taught Pod to fight and thus she could read his every move, while Brienne’s movements were an odd bastard of the Braavosi water dance and her usual style. It should be to her advantage, but in her hesitance, half a shield’s parry and half a dodge had left enough room for Pod’s kite shield to slam into her middle, sending her back a few steps by the sheer force of it.

She then doubled down and emptied her stomach to the dirt.

The crowd gasped. Jaime half-stood, ignoring the pain shooting up his broken leg. Pod froze, no doubt mortified, his own weapons held limp by his sides.

Brienne straightened her spine, and before Pod could move, she charged headlong into the lad, dropping them both to the ground before pinning him with her sword to his neck.

Pod let go of his weapons. “I yield.”

Brienne stood and took off her helmet, wiping off her mouth with the back of a hand. She looked up to the stands then, wisps of hair sticking to her sweaty face, eyes bright. A victor.

The crowd roared on their feet; Jaime included. If before he ignored his aching leg, now he barely felt it.

Daenerys came down her dais. She still wore Arya’s crown. Delicately, the queen took a crown of fire lilies from Missandei, then walked up to Brienne. Her voice carried like a bell. “You fought well, Ser Brienne. Who would be your queen of love and beauty on this day?”

Brienne took the crown with bare hands—she had taken off her soiled and dirtied gloves and tucked them in her belt—and her eyes darted to Sansa Stark, briefly, before meeting his gaze. Brienne turned to the queen. “Your Grace, if women can be maesters and knights, surely love and beauty should not be the sole provenance of women?”

Daenerys’ smile was knowing. “Indeed, they should not. Would you crown a king of love and beauty, then?”

Brienne turned and met his gaze again, her eyes blue as the waters of Tarth and the fire of a wight dragon.

He could scarcely breathe.

“I would.”

 

* * *

 

If not for Brienne’s armour and Jaime’s aching leg, they wouldn’t have made it to their quarters. She saw the want on his face. As it stood, thankfully, Jaime merely insisted they returned to their quarters posthaste.

As soon as the doors closed behind them, Jaime pulled her down for a kiss, knocking the crown on his head askew in his haste. She indulged him, happily, her heart bursting with giddiness and joy, her blood still rushing after the melee. Her hands were everywhere—his jawline, tracing the line between his beard and bare skin, his arms, the coiled muscles tense under her touch, his ribcage, the heaves of his breathing—and it was Jaime who wrenched his head back and away with him first.

“Wench,” he growled, still a lion though silvered and crowned with flowers, “do _not_ tease me right now.”

She nearly laughed before sobering under the heat of his gaze. His hand wound itself around a buckle by her side, one of several which held her breastplate together. He tugged at it, sharp, a demand.

She pushed his hand aside and undid the buckle, then the next, one by one until her breastplate hung loosely around her frame. He helped her pull it off over her head, placing it on the settee by their legs. The tassets around her hips went next, then, along with the swordbelt. He looked down on the padding around her middle, eyebrows knitted in confusion. “You don’t usually wear this much padding.”

Brienne undid the knots holding the padding together, and when it was off, she dropped it to the settee. Her thin shift was wet with her sweat, sticking to her skin, nearly see-through on some places. Jaime’s eyes darkened as he took her in. Before he could touch her again, she pulled back a step. “When we got here, I started feeling sick in the morning. I thought it was leftover seasickness, or I’d eaten something wrong, or—well. A few days ago, I went to Maester Sarella and she said—”

Brienne saw comprehension dawning on Jaime’s face, and so it came to no surprise to her when he completed her sentence, “you’re with child.”

“I am. The peppermint—you asked about it, Jaime, and I didn’t know how to tell you this morning—it was to help with the sickness. I wanted to tell you, but we barely spent any time together,” she pleaded. She felt like she should apologize, though for what mistake she knew not.

Jaime waved her pleas aside. “I could barely blame you. I was the one avoiding you if you recall.”

“You are not angry?”

“I’m a little angry I didn’t figure it out myself, not at you. I trust you with my life. It would be foolish if I didn’t trust you with our child’s life.” He touched her sides, then, carefully, and she did not shy away. His arms slipped around her waist, and he dropped his head to her shoulder. “You retched, earlier, but I believe it was only your lunch?” There was a tremor in their embrace, and she wasn’t sure if it was him or her.

Brienne had let her guard down, inadvertently, being too familiar with the way Pod fought. As she had retched, she had been snapped back to the present, and the anger and fear for her babe had taken her to charge him and end it as soon as she could. “Yes. I think so,” she said to Jaime. After the melee, the maester had pulled her aside and asked her myriad questions. That Brienne hadn’t bled meant the babe lived still. “The maester asked me to come to her should I start bleeding or something else changed, but I don’t think it’ll come to that.”

“Good,” Jaime said, and that was that. His hands roamed over her sweat-slicked skin, under her shift, until they rested over her abdomen, still as flat as ever. “I can’t wait,” he breathed against her collarbone.

“What for?”

“You. Round and soft with our child. Your feet will be sore, and you will bear it stiffly until there’s only the both of us and you will blame me. I accept all blame, by the way. I will wash your back, brush your hair, and massage your feet, and it will be difficult for us to find ways to make love as you grow bigger, but we’ll find a way.” His hand, meanwhile, unlaced the knots of her breeches with little difficulty. How needlework had changed him. “You will be cursing and yelling in the birthing bed, and though the women tending to you will doubtless insist I stay outside, you will ask them very nicely to let me stay and hold your hand, then you will clutch until my hand is white and berate me for imposing this burden on you. Then the maester, the woman one sent by the queen to tend to you, will catch the babe and cut its cord and put it on your breasts, and you will forget all curses because it’s there, and beautiful, and perfect. It’s yellow-haired, of course, and it has your eyes, and I will cry. If you’ve finally forgiven me for putting a babe in you, maybe you’ll let me hold it—no, _her_ , our firstborn will be a girl—and maybe you’ll let me put another in you.” He pulled her breeches down and she slipped them off her legs, greaves and all, and at last, she was bare before him except for his favour around her wrist. He took the wrist in his hand and kissed the palm of her hand.

Brienne’s eyes were brimming with tears, her throat clogged with something unspeakable. Words failed her, as they often did, so she pushed him to sit down on the settee—he’d been putting weight on that leg for long enough—and knelt between his legs to undress him in turn. He smiled at her, but there was neither mockery nor teasing in her eyes. She set his flower crown aside before taking off his doublet and tunic. When his chest was bare, he took the crown back and placed it back on his head with an altogether too smug expression. She unstrapped his golden hand, and she felt him release a breath as the weight was taken off him. He had explained to her, as they took their lunch, about how the hand had carried the weight of the embroidery hoop, holding it in place. His skin had chafed under the straps, she noticed. She would put some ointment on it later. She went and took off his breeches, leaving the splint on, until he, too, was bare like his nameday, or close enough.

Here he was, her king of love and beauty, and how much she loved him, and how beautiful he was.

“What are you thinking about?” he asked, his voice raspy.

“I think,” Brienne said, carefully, “I think I crowned the right person.”

“A pity I couldn’t do the lists as we planned. I’d win, then you’d have to wear _my_ crown when fighting in the melee.” There were laugh lines etched deep on both sides of his eyes. “Or maybe not during the melee, lest it gets knocked into the dirt and stomped on. It would be a waste of a crown.”

Brienne frowned. It was customary, of course, for a married lord to crown his wife queen of love and beauty when he won, but surely he knew that the crown would have been a mockery on her ugly face?

“Oh, hush.”

Brienne’s frown turned into a stare. “Hush? I didn’t say anything.”

Jaime rolled his eyes. “Give me a little credit here, wife. Your frowns are so loud. I know all of them.”

“Do you.”

“Yes, and this one says _there’s no way I could be a queen of love and beauty because I am not beautiful._ ” Jaime waited for Brienne to refute him, but she couldn’t, because once again he had read her mind. He continued, “I will tell you now, you are beautiful. You have the most astonishing eyes. Your figure is a most gallant one, and we should both agree that gallantry is a beautiful thing and not reserved for only men. At night, under candlelight, you look like a statue of one of the Gods.”

Tears welled up in her eyes again, and Jaime cradled her face carefully with a hand and a bare stump as if she was made of glass and not bone and muscle and sinew. She wanted to disprove him, an innate need to win, to be _right,_ but his certainty was such that she was compelled to believe him. So, instead of insisting on a fight she couldn’t win, she asked, “Which God?”

“I’m not sure. The Warrior. The Maiden. The Mother.” He pressed his forehead to hers. “Your beauty is not a delicate rose, this much I will admit, but will you say that the pine trees on Tarth not beautiful? Would you call the waters around Tarth ugly?”

Brienne could bear it no longer, then, his speeches and accolades too bright and too warm like the sun, and she surged forward to capture his mouth in a kiss.

He smiled into her mouth, she could feel it, and she felt as if she was catching fire. His hand moved to cup her breast and his stump slipped between her legs, dipping at the wetness that had been pooling on her slit before rubbing her nub, round and round and round.

It was dizzying.

She tensed and convulsed, her peak arriving sooner than she thought it would. She pulled away from him, then, for a few moments. As she gathered her breath back, he said, “Oh.”

“What is it?”

“You match the beads,” Jaime said.

She did. Her flush was so that even her collarbones were red. “Oh, hush,” she said, now, echoing his tone earlier.

“I must apologize,” Jaime continued, his smirk unbearable, “While it’s true you’re no delicate rose, I shouldn’t have forgotten other flowers. You’re clearly a peony in bloom.”

Brienne’s eyebrow twitched. “I said,” she growled, reaching down between them to grip his cock, “hush.”

Jaime’s breath stuttered but showed no reaction otherwise to her touch, and his words spilled without faltering even as she started pumping his cock in a steady rhythm. “You always try to shut me up, wench. Why is that? What is it you find so unbearable with my voice? Is it that I call you beautiful?”

“Yes,” she hissed. “It’s embarrassing.”

“Why should it?” he asked, and now his hand slipped to join his hand, two fingers slipping easily into her cunt. “It’s nothing more than the truth. There are many truths that are embarrassing, I suppose, but this isn’t one of them. I should think, in a perfect world, all men should find their wives beautiful.”

She opened her mouth to argue with him, but a moan escaped instead as he curled his fingers in her, hitting a spot that never failed to make her knees weak. She shuddered, then batted his hand away. “Stop.”

He did, leaning back on the settee, looking up to her face. “Are you alright?”

“Yes. Just—” She moved so she had both legs astride him. “I need you inside me.”

“Come, then,” he said, anchoring her with his hand on her right hip and his stump on another, and she aligned the tip of his cock with her opening, and slowly, she slid down. He moaned, then, and for a long while they spoke not in words but in sounds and touches. The sound of skin slapping against skin was loud in the cavernous sitting room, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. She rode him, and their movements jostled the crown on his head, though it remained there, precarious but stubborn. Not unlike him, she supposed.

He got his stump on her nub again, rubbing circles, and his hand pinched and played with her breast until she cried and convulsed around him, until all her muscles went taut and after, loose, her limbs draped over him, her hips stuttering in their rhythm, and he followed soon, spilling inside her.

When Brienne regained her wits, she slipped off him, the air suddenly too hot for her, and sat on the cool polished dragonglass table in front of the settee they had thoroughly defiled. His seed spilled from between her legs. “I suppose there’s no need for moon tea now,” she said. She’d only taken them so she would not increase before the tourney, besides. The plan had been, from the beginning, to let nature run its course after that. Not that it had stopped his seed, or her womb, to make their decisions for them anyway.

Jaime found this terribly funny, somehow. He laughed and laughed, then when he, too, gathered his wits, he said, “I don’t think a woman had won the melee before this, much less one with child. My love, do you have any idea how absolutely singular you are?”

“People often say so, though none as embarrassingly as you.” The afterglow had left her in better humour than before, and his compliments weren’t so grating to her now. She stood up and went to the bedroom, pulling on a robe and grabbing another from their trunk for Jaime. When they were properly covered, she rang for a bath, telling them to not bother with heating the water.

A knock sounded on the door and Brienne opened it to the grinning faces of Ara and Merry, each carrying pails of fresh spring water.

“Your bath, milady,” said Merry, perfectly polite even though her smirk betrayed more.

Brienne opened the door and the two women happily entered, neither of them seemingly perturbed by the smell of sex and scattered clothes. Brienne was a little grateful that her own maids were sent to deliver the bath, as they had been accustomed to the habits of their lord and lady, and by Jaime’s accounts, the maids even _approved_ of them.

With familiarity, however, came the lack of decorum, stoked in part by the lord they had spending time with. Ara looked at the clothes strewn about, and with a jaunty smile she said, “The crown suits you, milord.”

Jaime, lounging with abandon on the settee in his half-closed robe, tipped the crown as though it was a hat. “I thank you, Mistress Ara. My lady wife is so taken with the favour I gave her that she thanked me with a crown.”

Ara held back a giggle. “I trust you will need no more instruction in needlework, then.”

“Indeed, and we may find a new task for you yet. I talked to my brother, and Brienne approved of it. We’ve arranged, that if you wish it, you may have a place in the queen’s ship.”

Ara turned to Brienne, quick as a whip. “Truly, milady?”

Brienne smiled, forgetting her embarrassment in the sight of the girl’s joy. “You would always have a place in Evenfall Hall, but Jaime told me you long to see the world. The queen often journeys to Essos, to care for her cities there. If you want it, you may go with them.”

“I do want it,” Ara said, joy and wonder writ in her wide eyes. “Thank you.”

“Ah, well, I couldn’t seem to shed my Lannister upbringing. We always do pay our debts. You taught me needlework,” Jaime said. “You and Merry both, but I’ve no idea what to get for Merry.”

“Coin will do, milord,” Merry said, wry.

Jaime barked out a laugh. “My brother would like you.”

The maids filled the tub in the bedroom and left, then, smiling and congratulating Brienne on her victory before they closed the doors behind them.

Brienne undid her braid, the hair falling in loose waves. It would not last long, she knew, as her hair always were stubbornly straight, even though it was no longer brittle, but she rather liked it like this. From the look on Jaime’s face, he seemed to agree.

“Come,” Brienne said, pulling Jaime’s arm around her shoulders. He could hobble on his crutch, but her body already missed him. “Let us wash up and dress for supper.” Their shadows were getting longer, and soon they would have to light up the sconces.

Brienne insisted on washing Jaime first. He sat on a low stool as she efficiently cleaned him with a wet cloth, washing around his splint. After she washed him, she submerged herself in the tub, and he washed and worked scented oils into her hair, massaging her scalp lightly as he did so.

As Brienne dried off, Jaime hobbled and went somewhere, returning soon with a folded cloth in his arms. “My lady knight,” he said, “I would like to claim another prize for winning our wager.”

Brienne frowned. There was something terrifying in Jaime’s eyes. “What will you ask?”

“You wore my favour already, but now, I would ask you to try this on,” he said, offering the cloth to her, except now that she could see well it was one of her tunics, a deep blue one he liked exceedingly well on her. She had packed it for the feast, but it had been plain, then. Now, though—

She took it from him, unfolding it, and his designs unfurled before her. A golden sun on one shoulder, a silver crescent on another, and silver starbursts throughout. The fabric was stiff from the embroidery, accentuating her broad shoulders, the effect oddly similar to the pauldrons of an armour set. The collar and cuffs of the tunic had been covered by the same silk that made the kerchief, its light silver-blue contrasting to the darker blue of the cotton. The laces keeping it close at the front had been replaced with ribbons cut from the same silk. Over the silk collar and cuffs, Jaime had embroidered little starbursts in silver, densely packed, and over the rest of the tunic, more starbursts were scattered loosely. The hem, which should fall around her hips, had been filled with the same rose-colored beads, sewn in waves mimicking the ocean. Taken as a whole, the tunic was an image of the waters and skies of Tarth, similar to the designs on her kerchief.

“I only ask you to try it on,” Jaime said, gently. “I understand if it is too ostentatious for your taste. I got carried away with the designs, after all. If you don’t want to wear it to the feast, I packed your second-best tunic in the trunk. But if you dismiss it, let it be because it isn’t to your taste, and not because of some fool reason like it is too beautiful for you.”

Brienne nodded stiffly. She remembered the last time she had to put on something ‘pretty’. It had been the hideous pink dress at Harrenhal, and she had to fight a bear in it. This, though, was nothing like that. It was already her tunic. Jaime had merely embellished it, and he did so while fully intending for her to wear it. It would be ungrateful if she didn’t even try it on.

She pulled on her loose shift and breeches, and at last the tunic. She laced the front expertly, then tucked the laces in the collar. She turned to him. A smile bloomed on his face as he gestured to the mirror by the trunks.

She had avoided looking at the mirror as she dressed, but she could avoid it no further. She took in her mirror image.

Her hair fell lank and damp around her shoulders, but barring that, the shoulders did look like decorated pauldrons, the cuffs silver like gauntlets, and the hem could almost be tassets. Her fears evaporated. There were no corsets, no dress. Only her own tunic, except there was nothing _only_ about it. Jaime had sewn her an armour, one fit to be worn to a feast at court, which was a battle by its own rights. This tunic felt _right,_ more than anything. She could be a proper lady, in this tunic, though it had no skirt. She could be a proper knight, and not the kind that fought bloody and dirty, but a gallant one, a handsome one, the kind they would sing about in ballads. She felt almost beautiful.

Jaime appeared behind her, folding his arms around her waist, resting his chin on her shoulder. “Well?” he asked.

Brienne bit her lip, and tentatively, carefully, she said, “I think—I think I would like to wear this to the feast.”

Jaime’s answering smile outshined the sun and moon and stars of her tunic.

 

* * *

 

They arrived at the feast late, the knight with her glittering tunic and her lord husband with a crown of fire lilies atop his head, and songs of their love and beauty would be sung in many halls, many years after.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we're done! This fic started as a softclown fantasy, and I thought it wouldn't last more than a few thousand words. I am personally quite happy with it, what with it being my longest fanfic to date (even longer than my Spider-Man oneshot series, which is wild). I still have fanfic plot bunnies aplenty for GoT/ASoIaF, so you can bet I'm coming back to this fandom. I'm thinking maybe modern AU?
> 
> Shout-out to Weboury, simulacraryn, and just_liv for calling me out on my unsubtle attempts at foreshadowing. Thank you to all of you for reading until the end. This has been a ride (almost literally, if you think about the filth at the end, wink wink nudge nudge).
> 
> As always, please tell me what you think! Your comments have been most supportive and kind, and I eagerly await them.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on tumblr now! Say hi to me [here](https://nire-the-mithridatist.tumblr.com/).


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